20 Christmas Party Games for Adults That Aren’t Boring

Let’s be honest: the words ‘christmas party games for adults’ can either fill you with genuine excitement or a kind of low-grade dread — depending on how many times you’ve been subjected to a limbo stick in an office break room. The good news?

This list is nothing like that. We’re talking murder mysteries, blind wine tastings, gift-swap chaos, and the kind of heated movie debates that last well past midnight. These are grown-up games that actually slap.

Whether you’re hosting a small dinner party or wrangling a big group of colleagues, I’ve rounded up 20 christmas party games for adults that are clever, competitive, and just a tiny bit cheeky — exactly what the season demands.

A quick heads-up before you dive in: if you’re still figuring out what people are actually bringing to the gift swap, the 2025 Christmas Gift Guide has ideas for every single person on your list. Now, let’s get the party started.

1. Christmas Murder Mystery

This is the one that makes your Christmas party genuinely unforgettable, and tbh it’s been trending hard in 2026 for good reason.

In a Christmas Murder Mystery, every guest receives a character packet before the party — a backstory, a personality, a motive, and at least one secret they’re carrying into the room.

The evening unfolds through conversations guests actually choose to have: mingle, interrogate, bluff, and try to figure out who poisoned the Secret Santa present before dessert is served. No scripts required; the host plays a full character right alongside everyone else.

You can buy a ready-to-download kit online (they typically support 8–20 players and run 90 minutes to a full evening), or go full DIY with a Christmas-at-a-luxury-ski-lodge theme where one jealous gift-giver has done the unthinkable.

Assign roles via email a few days before so guests can prep a costume. Decorate with red ribbons, case-file folders, and a ‘crime scene’ corner of the living room. A festive playlist of moody carols sets the tone perfectly.

Here’s why this works so brilliantly for adult groups: a murder mystery gives the night a proper structure — a beginning, a middle, and a dramatic end — so the party never runs out of steam.

Introverted guests often shine because they’re quietly piecing clues together while the extroverts perform. The host tip that makes all the difference? Print character dossiers on aged-looking kraft paper and seal them with wax. People will be talking about it for years.

2. Christmas Scattergories

You already know classic Scattergories, right? This is that, but festively turbocharged and calibrated for adults who will argue passionately that ‘mulled wine’ counts as a Christmas movie character if you stretch the definition of character far enough.

Each player gets a sheet with 12 Christmas-themed categories (think: things you find in a stocking, reasons to dread the holidays, Christmas songs, things you buy last-minute, ugly sweater designs, etc.) and a randomly rolled letter.

Set a two-minute timer and go — you score a point for every answer nobody else wrote, so originality is everything.

Print one sheet per player, grab some pens, and use a standard six-sided die with a letter assigned to each face — or just pull a letter from a Scrabble bag.

Run four rounds with different letters, and award a bonus point per round for the most creative answer as judged by group vote. Hard mode: ban the obvious answers in advance (you may not write ‘Santa’ for any category that starts with S, for example).

That one rule alone will have people groaning in the best possible way.

The reason adults love this over kids is the category design — lean into the slightly irreverent ones. ‘Things that cost way too much at Christmas’ or ‘Excuses for avoiding the work party’ get responses that genuinely make the room wheeze with laughter.

If you want a quieter game for later in the evening after the cocktails hit, this is your go-to because it requires zero performance anxiety — just a pen and a devious mind.

3. White Elephant / Bad Santa

White Elephant — also known as Bad Santa, Dirty Santa, or Yankee Swap depending on which part of the country raised you — is arguably the most reliably chaotic game on this entire list, and I mean that as the highest possible compliment.

Everyone brings one wrapped gift (no nametag, no hints) and places it in a communal pile. Players draw numbers to determine turn order.

The first person picks and opens a gift; every player after can either open something new from the pile or steal an already-opened gift from someone else.

The drama, the betrayal, the strategic gift-concealment — it’s all the fun of The Hunger Games but with a scented candle at stake.

The rules that keep things moving: a gift cannot be immediately stolen back from the person who just took it, and once a gift has been stolen three times it’s ‘retired’ — the current holder keeps it permanently and it can no longer be touched.

After the last person picks, the player who went first gets a bonus steal since they never had that option at the start.

Recommend a price cap of around $25–$30 and let guests know funny or useful gifts work equally well — the funniest always generate the best reactions.

Want to upgrade the chaos?

Add a dice-roll variation: before opening or stealing, roll a die and follow a rule card (e.g., roll a 1 = swap with the person on your left; roll a 6 = steal anything you want with no restrictions this turn).

It adds another layer of unpredictability that keeps even the most experienced White Elephant veterans on their toes. Pro host tip: appoint a running commentator for the evening — someone who narrates each steal in a mock sports-announcer voice.

I did this at my last party and it was genuinely the highlight of the night.

4. Christmas Movie Emoji Quiz

This is the printable that gets passed around the table, sparks immediate arguments, and makes at least two people insist they definitely got it right when they absolutely did not.

In the Christmas Movie Emoji Quiz, each row shows a sequence of small picture icons — actual little illustrated symbols, not words — and players must figure out which Christmas film the emoji combination represents.

Think: a small house icon + a child icon + two burglar figures + a star = Home Alone. It sounds easy until you’re four eggnog deep and staring at a snowflake, a skeleton, and a wrapped present.

Print one sheet per player or one per team for a more collaborative vibe. Give everyone a set time limit — 10 minutes works well — to write their answers in the blank lines next to each clue row before comparing answers as a group.

Include 15–20 emoji puzzles ranging from dead-easy (the film everyone loves) to genuinely tricky (the film only two people at the party have actually seen). Award one point per correct answer, then go through each one aloud for maximum debating opportunity.

This works brilliantly as the game you slide onto tables while people are finishing dessert — no host explanation needed, everyone just picks it up and starts.

The trick to a great sheet is making the emoji sequences genuinely pictorial rather than word-based, so the puzzle feels like decoding rather than reading. It also doubles as a sneaky way to settle the eternal ‘Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?’

debate (spoiler: it’s on the sheet).

5. Blind Wine and Cheese Tasting

This is the game that makes your Christmas party feel like a genuinely sophisticated event — right up until someone confidently announces that the Merlot ‘tastes like my gran’s bathroom’ and the whole table loses it.

In a Blind Wine and Cheese Tasting, you set up four to six wines and four to six cheeses in numbered stations with all labels hidden (wrap bottles in foil or brown paper).

Guests move through the stations, sample each one, and write down their guesses — variety, price point, region, or simply ‘red, white, or rosé.’ Whoever gets the most right wins something appropriately festive.

Set the stations out on a long table or sideboard before guests arrive. Cover labels with brown paper bags tied with ribbon, or buy those clever foil bottle-wraps from wine shops. For cheeses, cut each one onto a separate board labelled only by number.

Provide a scorecard, pencils, plain crackers to cleanse the palate, and small cups of water. Run it in two rounds — first wines, then cheeses — to stop things getting too loud, too fast.

Keep portions small: a sip and a small cube per station is plenty.

Here’s the host secret that makes this game sing: include one obvious crowd-pleaser (a Prosecco, a crowd-friendly Brie) alongside one genuinely tricky option (an orange wine, a washed-rind cheese).

The contrast creates both smugness and humility in equal measure, and the post-game reveal where everyone finds out how wildly off they were is comedy gold.

If you want to lean into the gift angle this season, a gorgeous wine or cheese board makes a perfect addition to the colleague gift guide too.

6. Hot Takes: Christmas Edition

Every group has that one person who announces, entirely without shame, that they have never enjoyed a mince pie in their life and genuinely does not understand the fuss.

Hot Takes: Christmas Edition is the structured game that drags ALL of those opinions into the light, one at a time.

Each player draws a card (or pulls a slip from a hat) printed with a spicy Christmas-adjacent prompt — ‘Ranked Christmas songs from worst to best,’ ‘The most overrated Christmas tradition,’ ‘The Christmas film that is actually terrible,’ ‘Mulled wine: yes or deeply no?’

— and must defend their answer for 60 seconds while the group reacts.

To play, prep 20–30 hot-take prompt cards before the party and shuffle them into a pile in the centre of the table. Players take turns drawing a card, reading it aloud, and then delivering their honest take with full conviction.

Everyone else votes thumbs-up (bold but I respect it) or thumbs-down (you are wrong and I will die on this hill) using cards, paddles, or just enthusiastic vocalisation.

Tally the crowd reactions — the player who earns the most ‘bold but I respect it’ votes without getting booed off wins.

Why this game genuinely works for adults: it requires zero prep time on the night, generates conversation that outlasts the game itself, and it’s one of those rare games where the quieter people often deliver the most surprising takes.

It’s the natural companion to Unpopular Christmas Opinions later in the evening, but the framing here is different — Hot Takes is faster, more combative, and judged in real time. Keep a running tally on a whiteboard or flip chart for maximum drama.

7. Christmas Jeopardy

If your friend group contains even one person who takes trivia unnecessarily seriously (you know exactly who), Christmas Jeopardy is the game that will make them both furious and ecstatic in equal measure — and it is wonderful to witness.

Modelled on the classic TV show, you build a game board with five categories (Christmas History, Festive Films, Holiday Food and Drink, Christmas Music, and Wild Card) and five point values per category ($100 to $500).

Teams take turns selecting a clue and must phrase their answer in the form of a question. First team to buzz in wins or loses the points depending on correctness.

The easiest way to run this is via a free PowerPoint or Google Slides template (dozens exist online — just search ‘Jeopardy PowerPoint template’) customised with your own clues.

Split into two or three teams, appoint a host who controls the board, and use a buzzer app on a phone for that authentic game-show feel. Add a Double Jeopardy square hidden in the board where teams can wager their accumulated points for one clue.

Final Jeopardy is mandatory: one final category reveal, teams wager secretly, write their answer, and reveal simultaneously.

The calibration of difficulty is everything here. Mix genuinely easy clues (‘This carol begins with the words Silent…’ — ‘$100 answer: What is Silent Night?’) with properly hard ones that separate the true Christmas obsessives from the casuals.

A ‘Naughty or Nice’ wild-card category where clues can include charades or quick-draw rounds takes the energy from ‘quiz night’ to ‘actual party.’ If your group skews competitive, print team scorecards so the running total is visible to everyone at all times.

8. Dirty Santa Trivia

Dirty Santa Trivia is the printable that earns its name because the questions are just a little bit mischievous — not inappropriate, but definitely not the kind of trivia you’d hand to a seven-year-old.

Think: ‘Which Christmas movie features the line that references a bb gun putting an eye out?’ and ‘Which reindeer is NOT mentioned in the original poem?’ alongside some genuinely tricky cultural questions about Christmas traditions around the world.

Each player fills in their sheet independently, then answers are revealed as a group and the competitive chaos ensues.

Print one sheet per guest. Read each question aloud as a group so everyone answers simultaneously — no peeking at neighbours’ sheets (an honour system that, based on my personal experience, lasts approximately four questions).

Score one point per correct answer, with one bonus ‘Naughty Point’ available for the funniest wrong answer on any given round, as voted by the group.

At the end, the player with the most combined points wins bragging rights and whatever festive prize the host has sourced.

The sweet spot for Dirty Santa Trivia is mixing well-known trivia (so everyone feels they have a fighting chance) with three or four questions that genuinely stump even the self-proclaimed Christmas experts in the room.

It also works as a brilliant icebreaker at office parties because the questions are festive and crowd-safe without being so tame they put everyone to sleep. Print a few extra copies — somebody always wants to take one home.

9. Guess the Christmas Cocktail

Think of this as the boozy sibling of the Blind Wine Tasting — faster, louder, and considerably more likely to result in someone dramatically insisting that the mystery drink is ‘definitely just eggnog with hope in it.’

In Guess the Christmas Cocktail, the host pre-makes four to six Christmas-themed cocktails or mocktails (eggnog, mulled wine, spiced cranberry gin fizz, peppermint white Russian, hot buttered rum, festive punch) and serves them in identical unmarked cups.

Players sip, scribble their guess on a slip of paper, and then the big reveal happens together.

Prep the cocktails or mocktails in advance and keep them covered until game time. Serve in identical cups — paper party cups or small tasting glasses work perfectly — labelled only with a number.

Give players a tasting card listing the cocktail names in scrambled order so they’re matching rather than guessing cold (unless you want absolute carnage, in which case: cold guessing, no list).

Score one point for each correct match, and award a bonus point for anyone who correctly identifies the key spirit in an unmarked drink.

The host move that elevates this from ‘fun’ to ‘everyone is obsessed’: include one drink that’s non-alcoholic but made to taste convincingly similar to an alcoholic option.

Watching someone confidently declare ‘that’s 100% got vodka in it’ and then discover it’s a sparkling cranberry juice is genuinely one of the funniest party moments you can engineer.

And yes, this is the game where you need to have the recipes ready because approximately everyone will ask for their favourite afterwards.

10. Name That Christmas Number-One

This is the quiz that separates the music obsessives from the people who only know the festive banger everyone is absolutely sick of by December 22nd.

Name That Christmas Number-One gives players a year and a short lyric excerpt (or a cryptic clue describing the song without naming it) and they must write down the title and artist of the Christmas number-one single for that year.

Spanning the 1970s right up to the 2020s, the range means that every generation at the table has both a comfort zone and a completely blind spot — which is exactly how it should be.

Print one sheet per player. Cover 15–20 years across different decades so no single age group has an unfair advantage.

For each clue, give the year and either a lyric fragment or a descriptive hint — ‘This 1973 Slade belter that gets played in every supermarket from November onwards’ or ‘1991: a Queen double-A side re-release that had everyone sobbing.’

Players write the song title and artist on the blank line provided. Reveal answers aloud so each one gets its moment of either triumph or ‘oh COME ON, I knew that.’

The magic of this game at a Christmas party is the generational debate it unlocks. Older guests will be smug about the 1980s rounds; younger ones will have the 2010s and 2020s on lock.

There’s always one question where two people at the table had dramatically different life experiences of the same song, and that conversation alone makes it worth printing. It’s also brilliantly portable — laminate a few copies and you have a reusable game for years.

11. Christmas Escape Room

A Christmas Escape Room is basically the adult version of a treasure hunt, except the stakes are the fate of Christmas itself — because Santa has been locked out of his workshop / the naughty elf has scrambled the gift list / the sleigh combination lock has been changed by a rogue party guest (you pick the lore).

Players split into teams of three to five and race to solve a series of festive puzzles — cipher codes hidden in ornaments, riddles inside wrapped parcels, UV clues under the Christmas tree — to unlock the final combination before the timer runs out.

The easiest way to host this without losing a week of your life to prep is to buy a downloadable print-and-play kit from Etsy or a specialist site and print multiple copies for simultaneous team competition.

If you want to go full DIY, set up puzzle stations around your home: a coded message inside a snow globe, a colour-sequence clue strung across the tree, a combination lock on the ‘prize box’ under the tree.

A 45–60 minute timer creates just the right amount of pressure without tipping into actual stress. Have a hint system ready — sticky notes inside a sealed envelope that teams can ‘buy’ for a time penalty.

Here’s the thing about why escape rooms work so brilliantly for adult Christmas parties: they mix people who don’t normally talk.

The colleague who’s quiet in meetings turns out to be the one who cracks the cipher in 30 seconds; the person who claims they ‘don’t do puzzles’ is the one who finds the hidden clue nobody else noticed.

Split teams strategically to mix up friend groups and watch new dynamics emerge. It’s also, if I’m being real, the one game on this list that people will Instagram from start to finish.

12. Rank the Christmas Movies Debate

No prep. No printouts. Just organised chaos — and the kind of passionate, slightly unhinged argument that your group will still be referencing in March.

In Rank the Christmas Movies Debate, the host announces a slate of 10 Christmas films and every player ranks them privately from 1 (their absolute number one) to 10 (the one they’d happily see disappear from the cultural canon).

Scores are tallied to produce a group ranking, and then the real game begins: anyone whose personal ranking differs significantly from the group result has exactly 90 seconds to defend their position before the room votes on whether they’re right or completely misguided.

All you need is a shared list of film titles — write them on a whiteboard or just announce them and have people rank on their phone notes.

Good lists include: Elf, Home Alone, Love Actually, Die Hard (yes, it’s on the list, let them fight), The Holiday, A Christmas Carol, Gremlins, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Klaus.

Tally the rankings, reveal the group consensus, and then call out the most dramatic outliers. ‘You ranked Love Actually ninth? NINTH? Please explain yourself to the group.’

The genius of this game is that it costs absolutely nothing, requires zero setup, and generates conversation so good you’ll forget it’s technically a game. It’s perfect for the gap between dinner and dessert, or as the game you play while someone’s mixing the cocktails.

One house rule that makes it better: the person whose ranking deviates most from the group average has to pick the next game. Stakes, consequence, motivation — boom.

13. Christmas Movie Trivia Showdown

This is the head-to-head quiz format for the film-lovers in the group — more focused, more competitive, and considerably more likely to end in someone saying ‘I can’t believe you didn’t know that’ with genuine feeling.

Christmas Movie Trivia Showdown covers 20 questions spanning the big holiday classics: plot details, cast facts, production trivia, memorable quotes, and the occasional trick question designed purely to catch the overconfident.

Each player fills in their sheet silently, then answers are read aloud and scored with running commentary from the host.

Print one sheet per player — no phones, no googling, honour system in full effect. Work through all 20 questions before scoring anyone’s sheet, so there’s no mid-game coaching. Then go through each answer aloud.

For maximum drama, do the final score tally in reverse order from last place to first — game-show style — so the winner is announced last.

Award a prize that leans into the Christmas movie theme: a classic DVD, a film-themed mug, or a bag of microwave popcorn tied with a ribbon is genuinely enough.

The question mix is everything. Include obvious ones so people who aren’t super film-nerdy still feel they’re in it, but salt in three or four that only a truly committed Christmas movie person will know.

A good distribution: six easy questions, eight medium, four hard, and two trick questions where the ‘obvious’ answer is wrong.

This keeps the game competitive all the way through rather than giving the advantage to one person in round one and making it a foregone conclusion.

14. Christmas Song Lyric Battle

Fair warning: this game gets loud, fast. Christmas Song Lyric Battle is a speed-recall team competition where the host plays the opening three seconds of a Christmas song and the first team to correctly shout the song title earns a point.

But here’s the twist that makes it properly adult: after teams identify the title, they then have 30 seconds to collectively sing as many lyrics from that song as possible — correctly and in order — with the host counting valid lines.

Extra points are awarded for each correct lyric line. Getting the title right is just the entry ticket.

Build a playlist of 20–25 Christmas songs spanning multiple decades and genres — the classics, the guilty pleasures, the one that always comes on in the pub and everyone pretends not to enjoy.

Play three-second clips using Spotify or a YouTube playlist on a smart TV. Split the group into two or three teams. Keep score on a whiteboard.

The lyric recall round after each identification is where the points really accumulate and where even the team that buzzed in second gets a chance to earn if the first team blanks on the words.

One variation that is objectively brilliant: Lyric Battle Royale mode, where instead of teams, it’s every-person-for-themselves and players take turns singing the next correct line of a song in a circle — miss a line or sing the wrong one and you’re out, last person standing wins the round.

It’s essentially musical hot potato and it turns even the most reserved dinner party guest into someone belting festive pop in your living room. Which is, after all, exactly the kind of Christmas memory you’re here to make.

15. Worst Holiday Story Contest

Every single person at your party has at least one Christmas horror story — the gift that was so wrong it became a family legend, the dinner that went spectacularly sideways, the relative who said something at the table that caused a silence you could feel in your bones.

Worst Holiday Story Contest is the structured space to share those stories competitively, with the group voting for the one that is most objectively, gloriously catastrophic. No made-up stories allowed: this is 100% real-life material only, and it always delivers.

To run it, give everyone two minutes to privately recall and mentally polish their best/worst holiday story. Then go around the table — each person gets three minutes maximum to tell their tale, no interruptions.

After all stories have been told, everyone votes for the one they think deserves the crown (you can’t vote for your own).

The winner of ‘Most Legendary Holiday Disaster’ receives a prize — something hilariously appropriate like a glittery tiara, a ‘Survivor’ ribbon, or a bottle of wine with a custom ‘I Survived Christmas’ label.

This is a genuinely lovely game for groups where not everyone knows each other well, because personal stories are far better icebreakers than any trivia question. The game naturally generates empathy, laughter, and that brilliant feeling of ‘oh thank god, it’s not just my family.’

It’s also the game that most often spawns a follow-up conversation lasting 45 minutes that nobody wants to end. Keep the time limit firm during the telling, though — it’s amazing how quickly ‘three minutes’ turns into a twenty-minute saga if left unchecked.

16. Regifting Roulette

Regifting Roulette is the chaotic, slightly unhinged gift game for groups who’ve already played White Elephant to death and need something with a sharper edge.

Everyone brings one item from their home — something they genuinely received as a gift and never wanted, kept in a cupboard, or bought for themselves by mistake. These are wrapped and placed in the pile.

The twist: rather than simply stealing or swapping, each player spins a bottle (or rolls a die with instructions) that dictates their action — open a new gift, swap with any player, force another player to open their gift and immediately give it away, or activate the ‘regift reveal’ where the original story of how the item came into your life must be told before you can keep it.

Prep is minimal: a bottle or a die, a set of action cards placed face-down in the centre of the table, and the pile of genuinely terrible regifts.

Print or write six action outcomes on cards (Open a New Gift, Steal from Anyone, Force a Swap Between Two Other Players, Blind Swap — trade wrapped for unwrapped, Regift Reveal, and Wildcard — host decides).

Players draw an action card on their turn rather than always knowing what they’ll get to do. The randomness is the whole point.

The game works on two levels: the presents themselves are a comedy goldmine (a fondue set from 2003, a self-help book with an alarming title, a novelty item of unclear purpose), and the Regift Reveal moments — where players explain how the item ended up in their home — are often funnier than the gift itself.

Set a $0 budget requirement and watch people creatively interpret what ‘genuinely didn’t want this’ means. Hint: the weirder the item, the better the story.

17. Guess the Price: Gift Edition

This is the game that reveals, in the most entertaining way possible, how wildly different people’s perception of ‘reasonable gift spending’ actually is.

In Guess the Price: Gift Edition, the host collects five to eight wrapped or unwrapped items (a mix of real gifts, store items, or online finds) and presents them one at a time.

Every player privately writes down what they think each item costs, then reveals their guess simultaneously. The player closest to the actual retail price wins a point for that round — and the gaps between guesses are where the comedy lives.

Source your items in advance: a mix of surprisingly cheap things that look expensive (a nice-looking candle, a beautiful notebook), genuinely overpriced things that look ordinary (a fancy version of something mundane), and one or two completely unexpected items where the price is simply baffling in either direction.

Have the receipts or online price pages ready for the reveal. Players write guesses on slips of paper or hold up numbers on their phone.

The host reveals the price with a drumroll (a literal drumroll from a phone app, please — it makes a difference).

The best version of this game leans into the theme with gifts you might actually give — which makes it a sneaky way to inspire people with ideas for the people on their list.

If you need inspiration for what to wrap up, the women’s Christmas wishlist has some brilliant and genuinely surprising options that work perfectly for this game.

Award a running total and crown the most price-savvy player at the end — their prize should obviously be the most expensive item from the game.

18. Two Truths and a Christmas Lie

Two Truths and a Lie is a classic, but the Christmas Edition has a specific framing that makes it freshly hilarious: every statement must be related to Christmas — a holiday memory, a gift given or received, a festive tradition, a December disaster, or a Christmas confession.

Each player prepares three statements: two are completely true Christmas stories from their own life, and one is a convincing lie. The group discusses and then votes on which statement is the lie.

Points go to players who successfully fool the group, and to players who correctly identify the lie.

No materials needed beyond the willingness to be either extremely honest or extremely creative. Go around the room one at a time — each player reads all three statements in a poker-faced neutral voice, then the group has one minute to discuss before voting.

The reveal is always the best moment: the true stories are usually stranger than the lie. Scoring: 2 points for successfully fooling the whole group, 1 point for each person you fool, and 1 point for each player who correctly spots the lie.

The Christmas framing is what makes this version so much better than standard Two Truths. People’s holiday memories are either warmly nostalgic or spectacularly strange — the combination creates genuinely surprising material that you’d never get in a generic version of the game.

It also happens to be perfect for office parties, since the holiday context keeps things appropriately relatable without requiring anyone to share anything too personal. Pro tip: encourage players to keep one true statement that sounds absolutely unbelievable.

The looks on people’s faces when it’s revealed as true are priceless.

19. Guess the Ugly Sweater Owner

Ask guests to arrive in their most committed ugly Christmas sweater — and then photograph everyone’s sweater from the neck down before the party properly gets started (or collect sweater photos in advance if it’s a virtual hybrid event).

Display all the sweater photos numbered on a TV screen or printed on a single sheet, and challenge everyone to correctly match each sweater to its owner.

The more gloriously terrible the sweaters, the harder the matching — and the more revelatory the results are about your friends’ secret taste in festive knitwear.

The logistics are simple: as guests arrive, snap a quick photo of their torso/sweater only (no face) and number it. Load all photos into a slideshow or print them side-by-side on a sheet.

Hand out a matching card — a numbered list where players write the name of the person they think owns each sweater. Give everyone five minutes to complete their card before the big reveal. Award one point per correct match.

Whoever matched the most wins, and the owner of the sweater voted ‘most objectively terrible’ by group consensus wins a separate prize.

This game works brilliantly as an arrival icebreaker — you can run the matching phase while guests are still arriving and trickling in, so nobody’s sitting around waiting.

It’s also a very gentle way to get people mingling and chatting because discussing the sweaters gives everyone an easy conversation opener.

For groups who take their ugly sweaters seriously (you know who you are), add a runway moment where each person presents their sweater and explains where it came from. The origin stories are almost always more entertaining than the sweaters themselves.

20. Unpopular Christmas Opinions

This is the game you play at the end of the night, when the inhibitions are lower, the eggnog has done its job, and everyone is ready to be honest about things they’ve been keeping politely to themselves since December 1st.

Unpopular Christmas Opinions is a structured confessional: everyone writes their most genuinely unpopular Christmas opinion on a slip of paper — completely anonymously — and drops it into a hat.

The host draws them one at a time, reads them aloud, and the group votes on whether the opinion is secretly common (more than half the room agrees) or a genuine outlier that the rest of you are appalled by.

The setup is about as minimal as it gets: slips of paper, pens, a hat or bowl. Give everyone two minutes to write — and remind them that honesty is the whole game.

The host reads each slip in their best dramatic voice, the group votes via show of hands, and the tally at the end reveals which ‘unpopular’ opinions are actually widely held (the emperor has no clothes!) and which ones belong to a single brave/unhinged individual.

Bonus round: try to guess who wrote each opinion based on what you know about the people in the room.

Sample prompts to get people warmed up if they’re drawing blanks: ‘A Christmas food or tradition I genuinely do not understand,’ ‘A Christmas song that should be retired permanently,’ ‘My actual favourite Christmas film that I’m embarrassed to admit,’ or ‘The part of Christmas Day I secretly dread.’

The bonus round — matching opinion to author — is where this transitions from a quiet reflective game to something with proper competitive energy.

It’s the perfect closing game, tbh, because it ends the evening on a note of genuine shared honesty that feels surprisingly warm.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the best Christmas party games for large groups of adults?

Games that scale well for large groups include Christmas Jeopardy (split into teams), Christmas Murder Mystery (kits supporting up to 50 players exist), Christmas Song Lyric Battle (works with any number of teams), and Christmas Scattergories (just print more sheets).

The key for large groups is team-based play — individual games slow down when you have more than 12 people, but team formats keep everyone engaged even at 30 or 40 guests.

What are some fun Christmas party games for adults that require no supplies?

Several games on this list need absolutely nothing to play. Rank the Christmas Movies Debate is completely supply-free — you just announce the film list and let people argue. Two Truths and a Christmas Lie only requires people to think of their stories in advance.

Hot Takes: Christmas Edition can be run with just verbal prompts, and Worst Holiday Story Contest is purely oral storytelling. These are great back-pocket games for when you want spontaneous fun without any setup.

What are good Christmas icebreaker games for adults who don’t know each other?

The best icebreakers are games that create natural conversation without putting anyone on the spot. Guess the Ugly Sweater Owner works brilliantly as an arrival activity. Two Truths and a Christmas Lie gently encourages people to share stories.

Dirty Santa Trivia is a low-stakes printable that gives everyone something to focus on before the socialising kicks in. Christmas Scattergories also works well because the silly answers it generates are instant conversation starters.

What are the most popular Christmas party games for adults at office parties?

For office Christmas parties, games that are inclusive and don’t require people to know each other well work best. White Elephant/Bad Santa is the perennial office classic — familiar enough that no explanation is needed.

Christmas Jeopardy in team format works brilliantly because it’s competitive but not physically demanding. Christmas Scattergories and Christmas Movie Trivia Showdown are great printable options that feel like a group activity without singling anyone out. Avoid anything that involves physical touching or overly personal revelations.

How do you play White Elephant (Dirty Santa) at a Christmas party?

Everyone brings one wrapped gift with no nametag. Players draw numbers to determine turn order. The first player picks and opens any gift from the pile.

Each subsequent player can either open a new gift or steal an already-opened one — if your gift is stolen, you pick again from the pile or steal from someone else.

A gift can only be stolen three times total; after three steals it’s ‘retired’ and the current holder keeps it. The game ends when all gifts have been opened and the first player (who never got a steal) takes their optional final steal.

What are some funny Christmas party games for adults that aren’t childish?

Regifting Roulette is the funniest game on the list — the stories people share about how terrible gifts ended up in their homes are comedy gold. Hot Takes: Christmas Edition generates strong opinions and strong reactions in equal measure.

Blind Wine and Cheese Tasting regularly produces confident wrong answers that are genuinely hilarious. Worst Holiday Story Contest is reliably funny because everyone’s family has produced at least one Christmas disaster worth sharing. All of these are adult in framing without relying on anything inappropriate.

What are good Christmas drinking games for adults?

Guess the Christmas Cocktail is the most natural drinking game on this list — tasting cocktails and guessing their ingredients or names is essentially the game. Blind Wine and Cheese Tasting works the same way.

You can also add a drinking rule to almost any game here: take a sip when you get a trivia answer wrong, or when your Two Truths lie is correctly identified.

For a standalone drinking format, Christmas Song Lyric Battle works brilliantly — miss a lyric line and take a drink. Always ensure non-alcoholic versions are available.

What are easy Christmas party games for adults that need little prep?

The zero-to-minimal prep games here are: Two Truths and a Christmas Lie (no materials needed), Rank the Christmas Movies Debate (just announce the film list), Hot Takes: Christmas Edition (write prompts on index cards in 10 minutes), Worst Holiday Story Contest (truly nothing required), and Christmas Song Lyric Battle (just a Spotify playlist).

For slightly more prep but still easy, print sheets for Christmas Scattergories or Dirty Santa Trivia in advance and you’re done.

What Christmas party games work for both adults and kids?

A Christmas Murder Mystery with a family-friendly kit (many are designed to work from age 13 upward) works across generations. Christmas Movie Emoji Quiz is purely visual and kids often outperform adults on it. Guess the Ugly Sweater Owner is fun for all ages.

The Christmas Escape Room, particularly a print-and-play version, can be made age-appropriate by choosing a kit designed for mixed groups. Christmas Scattergories is also easy to adapt — include categories that both age groups can engage with.

There you have it — 20 christmas party games for adults that are genuinely worth your time and your guests’ energy.

Whether you go all-in on the Christmas Murder Mystery, run a chaotic round of Regifting Roulette, or let the Blind Wine Tasting descend beautifully into confident wrongness, these games are built for a grown-up holiday that nobody will forget by New Year.

Pin this list, print your favourites, and go be the host everyone talks about all the way through January.

And if you’re still sorting out the actual gift situation while you’re at it, don’t miss our round-up of what to get your husband for Christmas — because someone’s got to sort that out before the party starts.

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