Kids’ workers in the New Wine network share their top Christmas games for family services and kids’ groups:
Unwrapping presents
Race to see who can unwrap a present the quickest whilst wearing woolly gloves!
Christmas scavenger hunts
Go on a hunt around the church/room for a list of Christmassy items.
Christmas bells in a box
Shake the box, listen to the sound it makes, and guess how many bells are in there.
Pass the bubble
Pass a bubble behind your back and have a piggy in the middle who tries to guess who’s holding it.
Dress as a nativity character
See who can dress as a nativity character the quickest – have lots of costume items available. They then have to explain their part in the story.
Star hunt
Hide lots of stars of different sizes around the church/room, but only one big one. Each size has a different score. Kids collect them. You add up the points – the team/kid with the most/least depending on what you’re trying to illustrate wins.
Human Christmas presents
Give teams wrapping paper and masking tape. Choose a volunteer to be wrapped. The rest of the team try to wrap them as best they can. Best team wins. To make it nativity-related give one team straw and bandages. Don’t tell the others but they default win because they’re wrapped like God was at Christmas!
Ice cream snowman
Give each team a tub of ice cream and a bunch of sweets. Best mini snowman after five minutes wins!
Sticky Christmas tree
Use an ice cream cone as the Christmas tree (on a leader’s head). Decorate with edible stuff to look like a Christmas tree. Best decorated wins. Or for a twist – fastest leader to eat their creation wins!
Christmas beauty pageant
Get the kids to decorate leaders/each other as Christmas trees (tinsel, decorations, silly string), snowmen (wrap in toilet roll, hats, buttons) and presents (wrap in wrapping paper). Then hold a beauty pageant to show off the outfits!
Sheep poo Pictionary
Good for when talking about the shepherds! Use chocolate mouse on a table (spread out) and do Pictionary by drawing in it with your fingers.
Sticky sheep
Another for when talking about shepherds! Cover leaders’ faces in shaving foam. Have kids throw cotton wool balls to stick on the shaving foam to make leaders look like a sheep. The team who gets the most cotton balls on their leader’s face is the winner!
Christmas dinner danger
Blend the elements of a Christmas dinner together into a smoothie. The first leader to finish their smoothie is the winner!
Mince pie roulette
Take the tops off mince pies and fill them with alternative fillings! Try to guess what the filling is by tasting.
Rudolph nose game
Put some jam on each player’s nose. They have to run and stick their nose in a pile of cotton wool balls and then without using their hands, shake and scrunch their nose to get the cotton wool balls off and into a new pile to count. The most cotton wool balls in this pile after a time limit wins.
Christmas pass the parcel
Pass the parcel with a part of the Christmas story such as a picture of a nativity character in each layer – and chocolate of course! You could add each picture to a larger nativity scene.
Reindeer antlers
Use stockings on your head and balloons to fill them!
Christmas carol sing off
Kids compete to sing a Carol/Christmas song each until they run out of songs. You could show them a list of songs to begin with for a few minutes before you start.
Christmas song/carol bingo
This needs a good band or playlist.
Christmas pudding bowling
It’s very funny as they’re not round. You could have scoring zones. If they overshoot, they get nothing!
Indoor snowball fight
Use screwed up paper as the snowballs.