10 top party games for Christmas
Who’s in the hat?
Make up teams of two or more people and provide everyone with sheets of blank paper. Get each person to tear their paper into small strips and write on each scrap the name of a different celebrity: they could choose actors, pop stars, philosophers, historic figures – anyone whose name is well known.
The game works best and lasts longest if everyone names at least 20 celebs. Throw all the suggestions into a Santa hat, give it a shake and hand it to the first team.
The object of the game is for one team member to pull out of the hat and describe as many celebrities as possible within two minutes without mentioning their names. Any that are too hard can be ‘passed’ and put to one side.
As the names as correctly guessed, they’re discarded then counted up at the end of the round before the hat is passed to the next team. Any names left unguessed get put back into the hat.
When all the names have been guessed – or when your time limit for playing is up – the team with the most correct guesses wins a small prize.
Black magic
This is a trick that has to be performed by two people only, and the game is for your guests to try and guess how it works. Choose a partner who won’t give the game away, then let them in on the trick: you are going to pretend to be able to read the minds of each of your guests.
Here’s how: whilst you leave the room, your partner will ask one of your guests to choose and point out an object anywhere in the room that they will then concentrate on without looking at. You’ll then be called back into the room and asked to name the object by reading the mind of your guest. (This can be accompanied by lots of gestures as you harness your ‘mysterious powers’!)
Your partner will point to objects in turn and ask you if they are the one chosen by your guest. You will continue to say no until your partner points to a black object. You must still say ‘no’ to this one – but here’s where the magic comes in: the very next object will be the chosen one. All you have to ensure is that the right object is always preceded by something black.
Watch in amazement as your guests try to figure this one out! You can repeat it often and no one will guess your secret!
Alphabet talk
Divide your group into two teams and ask each team member to write down a topic for conversation and put it into a hat or bowl. It could be anything from food to reading to eating out – anything really.
The first team draws a conversation topic out of the hat and the other team gives them a letter of the alphabet at random. The idea is to start the conversation with a sentence beginning with the designated letter, and for each subsequent player to continue with a sentence or question beginning with the next letter of the alphabet, until you come back to the starting letter. For example, if the subject if eating out and the letter is ‘D’, the conversation could start with ‘Do you fancy eating out tonight?’ ‘Everyone’s going to the new Chinese’ ‘Fancy joining us?’ ‘Go on, then’, and so on through the alphabet until you arrive back at ‘D’.
The winning team is the one to complete the alphabet talk in the shortest time.
Hidden meanings
Give each person in your party a piece of paper and a pen. Pass a dictionary around and let everyone choose several unusual words with obscure definitions. Get them to write down the correct definitions and make up two or three others, then take it in turns to read one of their words and definitions aloud and get everyone else to guess which is the correct one. You could have a small prize for the person who guesses the most correct definitions at the end of the game.
Quick on the draw
Divide into teams of two or more and get everyone to write down subjects for the other teams to draw. They should be a bit challenging but nothing too complicated, for example: ‘An egg boiling’ or ‘Ball games’. Don’t have anything that doesn’t make sense as it’ll take too long to guess, if anyone manages at all! So don’t include things like ‘A duck drinking a pint’ or anything else too bizarre.
It’s best if you have a flip chart or a roll of lining paper - something big enough for everyone to see at once. Let the teams take it in turns to draw as many of the ideas as possible within a minute or two while their fellow team members guess. The winning team is the one with the most correct guesses at the end of the game.
Easy as 1-2-3
Give every guest a piece of paper and a pen. They each have to write a short ‘story’ using words of more than three letters long. It’s very challenging and the results are usually very funny. An example is ‘My dog ran out of the car and bit a man on the leg as he was a bit mad. The man let out a cry and saw a lad on the bus who sat on the dog...’ and so on.
Guess the object
This takes a bit of preparation, but is something the kids could do in advance. Trace common household objects from pictures in magazines or newspapers, then paint them in black. Cut out the pictures and stick them down on to sheets of white paper.
Your guests have to guess as many of the objects as possible from their silhouettes alone: it can be a lot harder than it sounds! If you have younger children with you, make some of the objects easy enough for them to guess.
Who am I?
Stick a sticky note with a famous person’s name written on it onto the foreheads of each of your guests and tell them they must guess who they are. They mustn’t have access to any mirrors and are not allowed to remove their notes to read who they’re supposed to be.
This is a good conversation starter, as each guest must chat to the others to gain clues as to who they are! The last person wearing a sticky note is the loser and wins a booby prize or has to do a forfeit.
Liar, liar
Get each of your guests to write down an interesting and previously unknown anecdote about themselves – either real or completely fictitious – and take it in turns to read them out to the assembled group.
The group then questions the reader to try to ascertain whether they’re telling the truth or a lie. There could be a small prize for the best guesser and the best liar.
Scramble!
Prepare a tray with around 20 objects on it. Write the names of the objects on slips of paper, but with the letters all jumbled up as in an anagram. (It helps if the objects have fairly long names, such a ‘corkscrew’ or ‘penknife’ rather than ‘fork’!)
Fold the slips of paper and put them in a hat or bowl. Get each of your guests to pick a slip but not look at it until each person has one.
When everyone’s ready, sound a bell or alarm of some sort to start the game. The first person to unscramble their word and find the corresponding object on the tray is the winner.
Put the slips back into the hat or bowl, give it a shake and start the game again with the remaining players until everyone has found their object.
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