Christmas word games for every moment of the holidays, no printouts needed

At the table after dinner

The plates are pushed back, someone is still wearing a paper crown from a cracker, and nobody wants to move yet. This is the moment for games you can play sitting down.

Finish the carol. One person sings or says a line of a well-known carol and stops just before a word. The next person has to supply it and carry on to the next gap. “Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is…” Old carols work best because everyone half knows them, and the arguments about the right words are half the fun.

The Christmas word chain. Say a Christmas word. The next player says a Christmas word that starts with the last letter of yours. Tinsel, lantern, nativity, yule log, gingerbread, dinner… If you hesitate for more than five seconds or repeat a word, you’re out for the round. Grandparents are dangerous at this one.

Tinsel is silent. A little party trick for grown-ups: the letters of tinsel can be rearranged into silent, the carol word, and into three more everyday words. Challenge the table to find them before the coffee is poured. (They are listen, enlist and inlets.)

Christmas games for family far away: one word for everyone

Not everyone can be at the same table. A daughter abroad, a brother who is working, a grandmother who no longer travels in winter. A word game can reach them too.

The simplest version is a daily secret word that everybody guesses on their own phone. Warmer Warmer works like the old game of hot and cold: you type any word, and it tells you how close it is to the secret word in meaning, from freezing to scorching. There’s one new word every day, the same for everyone, free in the browser with no app and no sign-up. On Christmas morning, everyone guesses the same word wherever they are, and the family chat compares guess counts. Just don’t post the answer.

Here’s how a game could go when the secret word is tinsel:

1. gravy48 °FCold: right day, wrong part of the house
2. snow100 °FLukewarm: it’s wintry, at least
3. tree151 °FHot: now we’re in the living room
4. garland178 °FHot: something you drape over the tree
5. glitter187 °FScorching: it sparkles
6. tinselFound it!

Tree moved the game into the living room, garland found the right job, and glitter gave away the sparkle. That’s the whole idea: follow the warmth, not the letters.

Try it now: what’s your first guess?

Guess

Your word goes straight into today’s game.

Christmas word games for kids waiting for presents

Christmas Eve, and the hour before the stockings are opened, can feel like the longest of the year. These two keep small hands and minds busy.

Christmas word scramble, no printer. Write the scrambled letters on a napkin or say them out loud, one letter at a time. Every answer is a Christmas word. Here are eight to start with, from easy to tricky:

1. LEBL
2. TRSA
3. FLE
4. GLSIEH
5. KCOSINGT
6. RNEDEERI
7. NDACY ENAC
8. TOMSELITE

Answers: 1. bell, 2. star, 3. elf, 4. sleigh, 5. stocking, 6. reindeer, 7. candy cane, 8. mistletoe.

Older kids love making their own scrambles for the grown-ups, and they will make them very hard.

The Christmas list memory game. The first player says, “On my Christmas list I wrote an angel.” The next repeats it and adds something starting with B: “an angel and a bauble.” Then C, D, and so on through the alphabet. Anyone who forgets an item is out. Little ones can team up with a grandparent, who usually has the better memory anyway.

Christmas party games for work

Office parties need games that strangers can join and that don’t make anyone stand up and perform. These two work well.

Secret word smuggling. Before the party, write one odd word on a slip of paper for each guest: pineapple, submarine, trombone, volcano. Everyone draws one in secret. The goal is to slip your word into a natural conversation without anyone noticing. If someone catches you and names your word, you’re out. A prize for whoever is still in at the end of the evening.

Christmas “Who am I?” Write famous Christmas characters on sticky notes: Scrooge, Rudolph, the Grinch, Frosty, Santa, the Nutcracker. Stick one on each forehead. Players ask yes or no questions to work out who they are: “Am I green?” “Do I fly?” It needs nothing but the sticky notes, and colleagues who barely know each other are chatting within a minute.

On Boxing Day

In the UK, Boxing Day falls on Saturday 26 December this year. On both sides of the Atlantic, the day after Christmas is often the calmest of all: leftovers, long walks and a sofa that nobody wants to leave.

Guess the carol from three words. One person picks a carol and says three words from it. The others guess the title. Some to try:

• cattle, lowing, hay: “Away in a Manger”
• Orient, kings, star: “We Three Kings”
• snow, Stephen, feast: “Good King Wenceslas”, a good one for the day itself, since Boxing Day is also the feast of Stephen
• holly, ivy, crown: “The Holly and the Ivy”

Hot and cold out loud. One person thinks of a Christmas word, the others call out guesses, and the thinker answers only with temperatures. It’s the childhood hiding game with a word instead of a hidden present, and it works from about age seven to ninety.

Tips for a mixed-age crowd

• Pair the youngest with the oldest. A seven-year-old and a grandparent make a strong team in almost any word game.
• Keep rounds short. Five to ten minutes, then switch. Christmas attention spans are short and well fed.
• No scores for the little ones. Let them be the judge, the scorekeeper or the one who picks the next word.
• Have one quiet game ready. Not everyone wants to shout. A daily secret word on a phone is a good escape for the relative who needs ten minutes in the kitchen.

When the decorations come down

The nice thing about a word a day is that it doesn’t end with the holidays. In January the cousins are back in their own homes, but there’s still one secret word a day, the same for all of them, new at midnight.

Planning ahead? There are word games for family night for the long evenings after the holidays, and Thanksgiving word games if you’re hosting both. The full rules of the hot and cold word game are worth a look before Christmas Day, and today’s word is ready whenever you are.