Christmastime is the perfect season to try and connect with your family and make memories together. Try some new fun family Christmas activities to create lasting connections.
Between the Christmas gifts and holiday food, there are plenty of opportunities for fun games and family traditions.
But Christmastime can also be a bit stressful and overwhelming, so if you’re looking for new ways to connect with your family or to start some new traditions, then let us help give you a few ideas.
Fun Family Christmas Time Activities
You probably already have plans to go look at Christmas Lights together. Why not make it a little bit more entertaining, or even a little competitive with a Christmas lights scavenger hunt.
Christmas Lights Scavenger Hunt:
A Christmas lights scavenger hunt is a perfect family activity to try because there is very little prep work for you. All you’ll need to do is print off a list of items or things to look for, and make sure everyone has a pen to use.
Visit the website: Just What We Eat for a cute free printable designed for Family Christmas Scavenger hunts.
You can work together as a family to mark everything off the list, or you can split up into teams and offer a small prize or treat to the winners.
Some ideas of things to include in your Christmas Light Scavenger Hunt are:
- A Northpole
- Santa
- Penguins
- Rudolf the Rednosed Reindeer
- Santa’s Sleigh
- The Christmas Star
- A Nativity Scene
- The Three Wise Men
- Christmas Tree
- Wrapped Present
- A Wreath
- Joy Sign
- Christmas Train
- Snowglobe
- Reindeer on Rooftop
- Santa Letter Box
- The Grinch
- A Candy Cane
Reindeer Games (Minute To Win It Games)
On Christmas Eve my family will often play “Reindeer Games” which is just different Minute to Win It Games, but we all wear fun reindeer headbands.
The best Reindeer Games to play are the games that are easy for all ages and abilities. Then it allows everyone, from your kindergartner to grandma, to be able to participate.
How Do You Plan Reindeer Games?
In the game, there are certain tasks or goals that need to be completed in one minute.
The first person to complete the tasks gets 5 points, then everyone who finishes the tasks within the minute gets 3 points, and if someone does not complete the tasks then they get 0 points.
Tally up the points after all the games are completed to see who the ultimate winner is.
Feel free to change these rules and make them your own! Everyone’s family is different. You might decide to give 2 minutes to complete the tasks instead of 1 to accommodate for smaller children. Or you can choose to score the games differently. The goal is to laugh, have fun, and make memories together.
Some of our favorite Minute To Win It Games for Christmas are:
Candy Cane Hook’em.
Supplies Needed:
- Timer (Phone timers work)
- Wrapped candy canes
- A deep sided bowl
How To Play
Players put one candy cane into their mouth, with the curved side out. Then they use that candy cane to hook another candy cane from a pile on the table and move it into a bowl. (It reminds me of the game Barrel of Monkeys.)
No hands allowed!
The points are given to players that transfer five candy canes into the bowl in under one minute.
Christmas Tree Cups
Another one of our favorite Reindeer Games is, “Christmas Tree Cups”.
Supplies Needed:
Plastic cups – 21 or 36 depending on how challenging you want it to be.
How to Play
The cups start out stacked into each other in one tall pile.
When the timer starts, the players must unstack the cups and create a triangle (or christmas tree) with 6 cups on the bottom, 5 on the next level, four on the next level, etc.
Then the player must restack all of the cups back, into each other in one single file, before the timer stops.
Christmas M&M Transfer
Supplies Needed:
15-30 Christmas M&Ms per person (plus more for eating).
1 straw and two bowls per person.
How to Play:
The goal of the game is to transfer all of the M&Ms from one bowl to the other by transferring them only by suctioning the M&Ms to the end of the straw. Make it more or less challenging by adding more or less M&Ms.
Wrap Ball Game
The Cling Wrap Ball Game is one of the most energetic and entertaining games to play with your family. Every family I know that’s tried it has loved it! It’s the perfect game for all ages to play, laugh, and enjoy together.
It does take some planning beforehand though, it’s not something that can be thrown together last minute.
Supplies Needed:
- 15-20 small gifts
- 2-3 boxes of Saran-wrap. You’ll want to purchase the cling wrap that really sticks together well.
- A Pair of dice
How to Create a Cling Wrap Ball:
First, you’ll want to purchase some smaller, hand sized gifts.
A few ideas are:
- Makeup and chapsticks,
- Gift Cards
- Socks
- Cash
- Candies
- Gum and Mints
The best gift is always wrapped in the center of the ball and is the last gift to be removed.
Start by wrapping the best and last gift with cling wrap. You’ll want to wrap it entirely around the gifts, but don’t wrap in the same direction. Changing direction as you wrap will make the game more difficult, and more fun.
After the first gift is wrapped completely, then add the second gift and begin wrapping the second gift around the first gift.
Continue adding gifts and wrapping them in layers. Sometimes you can wrap two gifts close together, and other times you can wrap more layers than normal. This will add variation and excitement to the game when your family is unwrapping it.
How to Play:
- The players sit together around a cleared table.
- One player has both dice, and the player sitting directly to the right of the person with the dice has the wrap ball.
- At GO the person with the wrap ball starts unwrapping it, trying to get a gift. And at the same time, the person with the dice begins rolling the dice together trying to roll “doubles.” Double ones, double twos, etc.
- When the person rolling the dice gets doubles they shout out, “DOUBLES” and pass the dice to the person on their left. The wrap ball then gets immediately passed to them.
- Keep going around until all the gifts have been unwrapped.
Your family will love any of these fun activities and will help you create lifelong memories together.
If you want more ideas for Christmas traditions, then check out our post here.