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Christmas parlour games
Make Christmas afternoon as lively as the morning with our selection of traditional parlour games
Christmas Day tends to be all excitement and anticipation until after lunch, when many families simply slump into comfy chairs and doze off in front of The Wizard of Oz. It's not much fun for the children, though, so this year why not get a round of good, old-fashioned parlour games going to delight and stimulate the whole family?
Charades
This time-honoured classic has the royal seal of approval, as it's supposed to be a favourite of the Queen herself.How to play
Get each person in the room to write the names of ten books, films, plays, television programmes or songs on scraps of paper, then fold them and throw them into a large bowl. If there are lots of you, split into teams and mime to your own team-mates. If there are fewer than eight of you, it's best to simply take it in turns to fish a piece of paper out of the bowl and mime to the assembled group, letting them first know what category of subject has been picked out. The first person to guess correctly then takes his or her turn, and so it goes on. It's best to have a time limit of, say, two minutes per mime to keep things lively. If you make any sounds during your mime then you are 'out' and must replace your piece of paper before play passes to the next person. Whoever guesses correctly keeps that piece of paper so that scores can be tallied at the end.
Who's in the hat?
This requires quick thinking and great powers of description!How to play
Get everyone in the room to write down the names of ten or more celebrities, book characters or other notable names on scraps of paper, then throw them all into a hat. As with charades, first decide whether to split into teams or play as individuals. Players or teams have one minute to take it in turns to pick names out of the hat and describe them as quickly as possible without using initials, rhymes or the name itself. Each time a correct guess is given, the player selects a new name, and continues until the minute is up, the aim being to get through as many names as possible in that time. Keep the correctly guessed names to one side so that you can keep score.
The vicar's cat
This is a word game for all ages, and one that children will particularly enjoy.How to play
Each person takes his or her turn to describe and name 'the vicar's cat', using letters of the alphabet in order. For example, the first player might say: 'The vicar's cat is arrogant and his name is Albert' and the next may continue with: 'The vicar's cat is belligerent and her name is Bessie'. Keep going until a player hesitates for too long, when they have to drop out or - to stay in the game - do a forfeit chosen by the previous player.
Variation
You can make this game more complicated by insisting that each new player recites the whole list so far. So, player three would have to say: 'The vicar's cat is arrogant and his name is Albert; the vicar's cat is belligerent and her name is Bessie' before going on to think of an example for the letter 'C'.1 | 2 | next
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