20 Friendsmas Party Games for the Best Chosen-Family Christmas

If you’re planning a Friendsmas this year, first of all — good for you, you absolute icon.

Second of all, you need friendsmas party games that actually match the vibe: chosen-family chaos, grown-up humor, maybe a glass of something festive in hand, and zero tolerance for boring icebreakers your aunt would enjoy.

This list is built for the friend group who quotes the same movies, roasts each other lovingly, and considers the potluck spread a competitive sport.

Whether your crew is eight people crammed on a couch or twenty deep in someone’s backyard, there’s something here for every energy level — from chaotic lip sync battles to quietly devastating hot takes about Christmas movies.

So here are 20 Friendsmas party games that range from laugh-until-you-cry active games to chill printable rounds you can sneak in between dinner and dessert. A few are marked 🍹 21+ for the drinking-game fans in the group — you know who you are.

The rest are fair game for everyone. Oh, and if you still need to sort out gift exchange presents before the party, the 2025 Christmas Gift Guide has you covered so you can show up with something actually good. Let’s get into it.

1. White Elephant / Bad Santa

This is the one that started as a gift exchange and somehow became a full-contact sport, and honestly, we respect it.

White Elephant (also called Bad Santa, Dirty Santa, or Yankee Swap depending on where you grew up) is the Friendsmas game — everyone brings one wrapped gift in a set price range, draws numbers, and takes turns either opening a new gift from the pile or stealing an already-opened one from someone else.

The person who just got robbed can steal from someone else or open a new gift. Chaos ensues. Friendships are tested. It’s perfect.

Set a budget (usually $20–$30 works well for a friend group) and enforce a fun theme — ‘things you’d genuinely be embarrassed to own,’ ‘luxury items from TJ Maxx,’ or ‘something from your house you’ve been meaning to regift’ are all crowd favorites.

Set a rule that a gift can only be stolen a maximum of three times before it’s ‘locked’ with its current owner so the game doesn’t go on until 2am.

Draw numbers from a hat to determine order, and remind everyone that stealing is not just allowed — it’s encouraged.

The Friendsmas twist: add a ‘Veto Card.’ At the start of the game, hand out one index card to each player.

Once during the game, you can play your Veto Card to block a steal on your gift — but you only get one, so use it wisely. This adds a delicious layer of strategy (and betrayal) that your friends will talk about for years.

If your budget is tight this season, check out these 7 ways to budget for Christmas before you set your gift cap.

2. Friendsmas Scattergories

Scattergories is already a banger of a game, but the Friendsmas edition cranks it up with categories that are hyper-specific to your group and the holiday season.

Each player gets a printed sheet with 12 Christmas-themed categories — things like ‘a gift you’d never want,’ ‘a Christmas movie character,’ or ‘something in your friend’s fridge right now’ — and everyone has 90 seconds to fill in an answer for each category that starts with the same letter.

You only score if no one else wrote the same answer. Unique answers win. Generic answers lose. That’s the spirit of the game.

Print one sheet per person (the printable below covers one full round, and you can play multiple rounds by pulling new letters). Use a standard dice roll or a letter spinner to pick the starting letter, set a 90-second timer on someone’s phone, and go.

Answers are read aloud after time is up — and THIS is where it gets fun, because your friends will argue about whether ‘Hallmark movie plot hole’ counts as a valid answer for the letter H. (It does. Let it in.)

The Friendsmas bonus round: add a category called ‘Something [Name] Would Definitely Do at This Party’ where the name changes each round to a different friend in the group. The answers are always chaotic and almost always accurate.

Award one bonus point for any answer that makes the named friend visibly embarrassed. Your friends will thank you for this one — tbh it might be the highlight of the night.

3. Hot Takes: Christmas Edition

This is the game for the friend who has been silently judging Christmas traditions for years and finally gets to say it out loud in a structured format.

Hot Takes: Christmas Edition is a quiet, conversational game where players take turns drawing a card with a spicy holiday opinion prompt and either defending it, opposing it, or confessing whether they secretly agree.

Think: ‘Elf is overrated,’ ‘Real trees are not worth the effort,’ or ‘Giving gift cards is actually the most thoughtful move.’ There are no winners or losers — just a lot of opinions and probably some revelations about your friends you weren’t expecting.

Write 20–30 hot take prompts on index cards before the party, or use the printable card deck version below. Shuffle and place the deck face-down in the center of the table. Players take turns drawing and reading the prompt aloud.

Everyone silently votes ‘agree’ or ‘disagree’ by holding up a thumbs up or thumbs down — then the reader shares their own take and anyone who wants to can defend or demolish the opinion.

No formal scoring needed, but you can award a crown or a silly prize to whoever delivers the most controversial take of the night.

Pro tip from experience: have someone write down the wildest takes on a whiteboard or sticky note throughout the game.

At the end of the night, vote on ‘Most Unhinged Take of the Evening’ — and whoever said it has to defend it one more time in 30 seconds or less.

This game has a way of going for 45 minutes when you planned 15, and honestly, that’s a sign you’re doing Friendsmas right.

4. Christmas Murder Mystery

Okay, this one takes a little prep but delivers an entire evening of entertainment, and your friends will genuinely be talking about it next year.

Christmas Murder Mystery is an immersive group game where each guest gets a character card with a festive persona — think ‘the overcaffeinated elf,’ ‘the passive-aggressive reindeer,’ ‘the bitter Christmas tree lot owner’ — and a secret role (suspect, detective, or innocent bystander).

Someone has ‘murdered’ the holiday spirit (or stolen the Christmas star, or poisoned the eggnog — you pick the theme), and everyone has to mingle, gather clues, and figure out who did it before time runs out.

You can buy a pre-made Christmas murder mystery kit from Etsy or Amazon (they run about $10–$20 for a digital download), or you can DIY it with a free template — assign roles ahead of time, email each player their character dossier before the party so they can arrive ‘in character,’ and set up three to five ‘clue stations’ around your space with printed evidence envelopes.

Plan for about 60–90 minutes of gameplay, with a big reveal at the end where everyone accuses their prime suspect before the answer is announced.

The Friendsmas upgrade: base the characters on loose parodies of your actual friend group’s personalities — the friend who’s always cold, the one who stress-bakes, the one who gifts weird stuff — without making it too personal.

People will immediately recognize the archetypes and the game becomes twice as funny. Just maybe don’t make anyone the actual murderer in the game if they’re notoriously bad at keeping a straight face. (You know who they are.)

5. Naughty or Nice Dares

🍹 21+ game — This one is exactly what it sounds like, and it is absolutely unhinged in the best way.

Naughty or Nice Dares is a Christmas-themed dare game where players draw a card from either the ‘Nice’ pile (tame, PG-13 dares) or the ‘Naughty’ pile (adult, chaotic, 21+ dares) and have to complete the dare or take a sip.

The twist is that you don’t get to choose which pile — that’s determined by a spin of an ornament on a lazy susan, or a coin flip, or however your host wants to randomize it. Sometimes you get Nice.

Sometimes the universe has other plans.

Write your dares in advance (or print them from the printable card set below).

Nice dares might include things like: ‘Sing the first line of a Christmas song in an opera voice,’ ‘Do your best Mariah Carey impression,’ or ‘Describe your worst Christmas gift without laughing.’

Naughty dares escalate accordingly — we’ll let your imagination fill in the blanks, but lean into roast-your-friend energy rather than anything actually uncomfortable. Always include a ‘pass with a sip’ option for anyone who wants out of a dare — consent is always in season.

Host tip: write the dares with your specific friend group in mind. Inside jokes hit infinitely harder than generic dares you found on the internet.

And if someone draws a dare that references a group memory or running joke, give that player an automatic bonus point (or bonus sip, depending on how you’re keeping score).

The more personal the dares, the more this becomes a core Friendsmas memory rather than just a game you played once.

6. Christmas Jeopardy: Friendsmas Edition

Jeopardy is already a top-tier party game format, and the Friendsmas edition makes it even better by mixing classic Christmas trivia with categories that are completely, shamelessly about your friend group.

We’re talking categories like ‘Christmas Movie Quotes,’ ‘Things [Friend’s Name] Has Actually Said,’ ‘Overrated Holiday Foods,’ ‘Songs We All Know One Verse Of,’ and ‘This Year’s Group Chat Highlights.’

Players buzz in (phones work great as buzzers — first to text a designated number wins the point), phrase answers in the form of a question, and rack up points across five categories with five questions each.

You can run this on a TV using a free Jeopardy-style PowerPoint template (search ‘free Jeopardy PowerPoint template’ — they’re everywhere and super easy to customize), or print the board and questions on paper for a lo-fi version.

Assign point values of 100, 200, 300, 400, and 500 per category row. Split into two or three teams for a livelier game, and include a Daily Double somewhere in the ‘Friend Group’ category so the stakes feel real.

Have a host read the clues and track points on a whiteboard — this person should commit to a slightly dramatic Jeopardy-host energy.

The secret to making this game legendary is spending 20 minutes before the party writing five genuinely good ‘Friendsmas Edition’ clues that reference real moments from your group’s year — a trip you took, a meme that destroyed the group chat, a phrase one person says too much.

When someone gets a question right that references a shared memory, the whole room loses it, and that’s the whole point. This game scales beautifully for large groups since teams keep everyone involved.

7. Christmas Lip Sync Battle

If your friend group has even one person who becomes a different human being when the right song comes on — you need a Christmas Lip Sync Battle at your Friendsmas.

Inspired by the television format, this game splits your group into solo performers or pairs who each pick a Christmas (or Christmas-adjacent) song to perform in full, complete with lip sync, choreography, props, and whatever dramatic energy they can muster.

A panel of three judges — rotated from the group — scores each performance on a 1–10 scale for lip sync accuracy, stage presence, and ‘Friendsmas spirit,’ whatever that means to your judges.

Set it up by creating a sign-up sheet at the beginning of the party so people can claim their songs early and have time to prepare.

Designate a ‘stage’ area — even just an open corner of the living room with a ring light pointing at it — and create a simple playlist of the Christmas classics available on Spotify or YouTube so the backing track is ready to go.

Give performers 5 minutes to ‘prepare backstage’ (i.e., grab a scarf for a prop or text their friend for backup).

For maximum chaos, let the audience request one song swap per night — so someone could force a performer to do a completely different song with zero prep.

The Friendsmas twist: have each performer dedicate their song to another friend in the group and explain why in 10 seconds before performing. ‘This is for Sarah, because she STILL plays Mariah Carey in July and we’ve all accepted it.’

That tiny addition makes everything feel more personal and the roast-adjacent dedications are almost funnier than the performances themselves. Bonus points if someone genuinely prepares backup dancers from the group without telling the performer.

8. Blind Mulled Wine Tasting

Tbh this game is genius because it requires almost no setup, doubles as a party activity AND a drink, and makes everyone feel slightly sophisticated while also being very competitive about something that doesn’t matter at all.

Blind Mulled Wine Tasting works exactly like a blind wine tasting, but with three to five different mulled wine or mulled cider varieties — some homemade, some store-bought, one wildcard (try a mulled rosé or a mulled white wine and watch people’s faces).

Each guest gets numbered samples in small cups, tastes each one, and scores them on a printed ballot for things like warmth of spice, sweetness, overall holiday vibe, and whether they’d drink a full mug of it.

Prep three to five varieties the day before or morning of — keep them warm in separate slow cookers or labeled thermoses on the counter. Cover the bottles and containers so no one sees the brands, and number each station.

Give guests a simple scoring ballot (or use the printable below) and a palate cleanser — a plain cracker or a sip of water between samples. Guests fill out their ballots, then everyone reveals their scores and the ‘best mulled wine’ is crowned.

The host then reveals what each one was, and the room either goes ‘oh obviously’ or ‘I can’t believe I gave the store brand an 8.’

The Friendsmas upgrade: include a ‘make your own blend’ station at the end — set out cinnamon sticks, star anise, orange peel, cloves, and vanilla and let guests doctor up a small mug of base red wine however they want.

Then do a mini secondary tasting of the custom blends. This turns a 20-minute game into an hour-long activity that keeps the drinks flowing and gives everyone something to do with their hands.

The person whose blend gets voted best earns serious bragging rights for the rest of the night.

9. Christmas Logic Puzzle

Hear me out — logic puzzles at a party sounds like it’s giving ‘homework,’ but I promise that when you put a Christmas logic puzzle in front of a competitive friend group, the table goes silent in the best way.

This is the game for the friend who always says ‘I’m not really a games person’ and then ends up the most intensely focused person in the room.

Each guest gets a printed puzzle sheet and has to use a series of clues to figure out which elf delivered which gift to which reindeer on which night — or whatever holiday-themed scenario the puzzle sets up — by eliminating possibilities in a grid.

The printable below is a self-contained puzzle: five Christmas characters, five gifts, five locations, and 10–12 clues to work through. Players work solo and race to finish first. Set a 15-minute timer, and when time is called, reveal the answer key.

First person to finish correctly wins, but partial credit goes to whoever solved the most rows correctly — because someone will be agonizingly one clue away and they deserve recognition.

The answer key is printed in small, light grey italic text at the very bottom of the sheet so the host can confirm winners without it being visible during play.

This game is genuinely great for Friendsmas because it gives everyone something to do simultaneously, fills that lull between courses, and requires zero game equipment or team management. Plus, watching your most confident friend confidently get the wrong answer is a Friendsmas gift in itself.

Pair it with the Hot Takes card game afterward so the energy shifts back to chaotic and social — this is your ‘calm before the storm’ game in the lineup.

10. Rank the Christmas Movies Debate

This game will reveal who your friends really are, and some of those revelations will be alarming.

Rank the Christmas Movies Debate is exactly what it sounds like: everyone gets a list of 15–20 Christmas movies and has to rank their personal Top 5 in order, defend those choices out loud to the group, and survive the resulting chaos.

The game works in rounds — in Round 1, everyone shares their personal Top 5. In Round 2, the group tries to agree on one collective Top 5 via debate.

In Round 3 (if you make it), you tackle the Hot Button question: is Die Hard a Christmas movie, and what about Gremlins, and actually, what even IS a Christmas movie?

Print or write out the movie list on a card for each player so everyone’s working from the same options, and give them three minutes of silent ranking time before the debate begins.

Appoint a ‘moderator’ (ideally the most chaotic person there, because they will make worse decisions that are more fun) to call on speakers, manage crosstalk, and declare when a debate has gone on long enough.

Set a 5-minute timer per round — the artificial time pressure makes people say wild things they can’t take back.

The Friendsmas twist: add a ‘Banish’ rule — each player can nominate one movie to be removed from the master list entirely, never to be discussed again.

The catch is they have to defend the banishment in 20 seconds or the group can vote to override it. Watching someone try to explain in 20 seconds why The Holiday should be erased from cinema history is its own entertainment.

This game doesn’t need prizes — the arguments ARE the prize.

11. Christmas Movie Drinking Game

🍹 21+ game — This is the Friendsmas game that requires the least amount of active effort and delivers the most passive fun, which is exactly what you want when half the group is full of holiday food and just wants to sit on the couch.

Christmas Movie Drinking Game works by putting on a beloved Christmas movie — Elf, Home Alone, The Holiday, Love Actually, or whatever the group picks — and giving everyone a printed or shared rule sheet listing specific triggers that happen in the movie.

Every time one of the triggers hits, everyone drinks. It’s simple. It’s classic. It works every time.

The key is writing the triggers with the right level of specificity — too broad (‘someone says Merry Christmas’) and you’re drinking every 90 seconds; too narrow and you forget the rules exist.

Good trigger examples for Elf: drink when Buddy eats something horrifying, when someone calls him an elf dismissively, or when a scene cuts to the North Pole.

For Love Actually: drink every time a plotline starts and you forget it existed, when someone cries, or when a scene involves an airport. Print the rules or put them in the group chat before the movie starts so everyone’s on the same page.

The Friendsmas upgrade: let the group vote on the movie at the start of the party (write three options on a whiteboard and do a show of hands) rather than the host picking — this way the movie feels like a collective choice and people are more invested in the triggers.

Bonus round: add a ‘personal trigger’ for each player based on their known personality — the friend who always makes predictions has to drink every time they’re wrong about what happens next in the movie. Hyper-specific. Deeply funny. 10/10.

12. Guess Who Cooked It: Potluck

If your Friendsmas is a potluck — and it should be, because why would one person cook for everyone — this game turns the food itself into the entertainment.

Before the party, every guest sends the host the name of one dish they’re bringing but keeps it secret from everyone else. When the food is set out, there are no labels.

Guests have to taste the dishes and guess which friend made each one, writing their answers on a ballot. Whoever correctly identifies the most chefs wins.

Extra point if you can name a dish’s secret ingredient or correctly describe how ambitious or lazy the preparation was (no judgment — we see you, store-bought pigs in blankets labeled ‘homemade’).

Keep the setup low-effort: the host makes a numbered list of all dishes, gives each dish a number at the table (little folded paper tent cards work perfectly), and hands out a simple ballot listing the dish numbers with a blank line next to each for the guest’s guess.

After everyone’s had a chance to taste and fill out their ballot, reveal the answers one by one — this works best when the guest who made each dish stands up to claim it, because the reactions are priceless.

Bonus: ask each guest to share one true thing about how they made their dish (technique, secret ingredient, or whether they panicked and pivoted at 6pm).

The Friendsmas twist: add a ‘Roast or Toast’ round after the reveal.

For each dish, the table gets 30 seconds to either roast it (‘this tastes like you made it at midnight and we respect the chaos’) or toast it (‘genuinely the best thing on this table and I’m taking leftovers home’).

This turns the post-reveal into a mini awards show for the food, and whoever gets the most genuine toasts wins a little prize — maybe a nice bottle of wine or first pick at White Elephant gifts.

13. Friendsmas Scattergories

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14. Ugly Sweater Runway

Ugly sweater contests are a Friendsmas classic for a reason, but a basic ‘who wore it best’ vote gets stale fast.

Ugly Sweater Runway turns it into a full fashion show moment — each guest who wore a sweater gets a runway walk (a clear path through the living room, bonus points for a genuine strut), and they have exactly 60 seconds to pitch their sweater to the ‘judges’ like they’re on a design competition reality show.

Tell us your inspiration. Tell us the story of where you found it. Tell us why it deserves to win. The more dramatic the presentation, the better the scores.

Set up three rotating judges from the group (change them for each contestant so more people participate in judging).

Score on a 1–10 scale across three categories: Visual Chaos (how objectively a lot is happening on this sweater), Story (how compelling the pitch was), and Commitment to the Bit (how hard are they selling it). Tally scores on a whiteboard.

The winner gets a prize — something small and silly works best, like a gift card, a bottle of wine, or a tiny trophy from the dollar store that says ‘#1’ on it.

No ugly sweater? No problem. Add a ‘Best Holiday Outfit’ category so people who showed up in festive accessories or a full Christmas-character costume can still participate.

The key rule: you have to have worn it TO the party, not just put it on from someone’s hall closet five minutes before the contest. Integrity matters. (It doesn’t. But it’s funnier if you pretend it does.)

And if you’re still shopping for sweaters before the party, check out the holiday gift guide for women — there are some genuinely unhinged options in there.

15. Most Likely To: Friend Group

This is the Friendsmas game that sounds innocent and then somehow becomes the most revelatory 45 minutes of the year.

Most Likely To: Friend Group uses prompts that are 100% tailored to your specific crew — not generic ‘most likely to become famous’ stuff, but ‘most likely to text everyone at 2am about something urgent that turns out to be a meme,’ ‘most likely to show up late but have the best excuse,’ and ‘most likely to cry at a Pixar movie and deny it immediately.’

Each round, the host reads a prompt and everyone simultaneously points to whoever in the group fits best. Majority vote wins. The pointed-at person must react.

Write your prompts in advance on index cards — aim for 25–30 for a full game, mixing silly, sweet, and lightly chaotic prompts so it doesn’t feel like a roast session (even though it kind of is).

The rule is that whoever is pointed to the most in a round takes a point — and if there’s a tie, those two people have 30 seconds to make a case for why it should be the OTHER person.

The group then votes on who was more convincing. Tallying points is optional; the real win is watching your most self-aware friend get called out for something extremely specific.

The Friendsmas twist: include at least five prompts that reference things that actually happened in your friend group this year — events from your group chat, trips you took together, running jokes.

When someone gets pointed to for ‘most likely to turn a Trader Joe’s run into a 2-hour event’ and it’s immediately, unanimously that one friend, and that friend KNOWS it, that’s a Friendsmas memory right there.

Seriously, this game is the cheapest and easiest one on this whole list and it delivers every single time.

16. Christmas Song Lyric Battle

This game is a Christmas party staple that gets better the more confident (or caffeinated, or festively beveraged) your friend group is. Christmas Song Lyric Battle splits the room into two teams.

The host plays the opening two seconds of a Christmas song — just the very beginning, no recognizable melody yet if possible — and both teams race to buzz in and name the song.

But here’s where it becomes a battle: instead of just naming the song, the first team to buzz in has to correctly sing the next line of the lyrics from wherever the clip cut off. Miss the lyric?

The other team steals and gets to attempt it. Correct lyric? Point scored.

Build your playlist ahead of time — aim for 30 songs at varying difficulty levels, from ‘everyone knows this instantly’ (All I Want for Christmas Is You) to ‘technically a Christmas song but you have to think about it’ (Run Rudolph Run, Fairytale of New York, I’ll Be Home for Christmas).

Cut each to a 2–3 second clip using a free audio tool or just time your Spotify pause manually. Designate one person as DJ and host.

Teams buzz in by raising their hand, banging the table, or using a physical bell — the physical bell is genuinely worth buying for like $4 at a thrift store because it makes everything more fun.

The Friendsmas bonus round: add a ‘Solo Spotlight’ round at the end where individual players can earn double points by performing an entire verse of a song from memory, a cappella, with no hints.

Pick the one person in your group who has never been scared to sing in public and watch them absolutely demolish the competition.

This game is best played after a few drinks and at a volume that your neighbors may have Opinions about — forewarning them first is optional but polite.

17. Unpopular Christmas Opinions

Different from Hot Takes (which is reactive and debate-style), Unpopular Christmas Opinions is a slower, more contemplative game that works perfectly as a wind-down or conversation-starter at the beginning of the night.

Each player anonymously writes their single most unpopular Christmas opinion on a slip of paper — the thing they’ve never said out loud at a family dinner because they’d get disowned, but feel completely safe saying at Friendsmas.

All slips go into a bowl, get shuffled, and are read aloud one by one. After each opinion is read, the group guesses who wrote it before the author reveals themselves.

The guessing mechanic is where it gets fun — everyone makes their guess simultaneously (pointing at the person, or writing a name and revealing on a count of three) so there’s no anchoring off other people’s guesses.

The author then reveals themselves, gets 30 seconds to explain and defend their opinion, and the group reacts however they see fit.

No formal scoring needed, but you can award a ‘Most Unpopular Opinion’ crown at the end voted by the group, which is both an honor and a mild indictment.

Keep a running ‘opinion board’ on a whiteboard or sticky note pad — write each opinion down as it’s revealed, so by the end of the game you have a beautiful documented wall of chaos that serves as the evening’s unofficial manifesto.

(‘We, the Friendsmas Class of 2026, believe that: Christmas pudding is a threat, Christmas Eve is better than Christmas Day, and Santa should be modernized.’) Take a photo of it at the end of the night. It will be funnier in July.

This is also the perfect low-key game for groups where not everyone wants to perform or be active — it gives the more introverted guests a way to participate meaningfully.

18. Jingle Juice Pong

🍹 21+ game — It’s beer pong. It’s Christmas. It’s Jingle Juice Pong, and yes, you’re going to play it unironically and have a genuinely great time.

Set up two triangles of six plastic cups on opposite ends of a long table (or push two folding tables together).

Fill each cup with your drink of choice — spiked eggnog, spiked apple cider, mulled wine, or literally just hard seltzer if you want to be reasonable about it.

Teams of two take turns throwing a small ball (ping pong ball, or a soft pom-pom ornament for the holiday aesthetic) into the other team’s cups. Make it in a cup? That person drinks. Eliminate all the other team’s cups to win.

The Friendsmas rules add-ons that make this feel intentional rather than just ‘we played beer pong at a Christmas party’: rename all the cups.

The back solo cup is ‘The Star,’ the two in the middle row are ‘The Reindeer,’ and the front three are ‘The Elves.’ If you sink The Star, the other team has to drink two cups.

If both your team’s balls land in the same cup in one round, it’s a ‘Blizzard’ and the other team drinks three.

Add a ‘Naughty List’ rule: if you airball twice in a row, you go on the Naughty List and must wear a silly Christmas hat for the rest of the game.

Non-drinkers can play with sparkling juice, lemonade, or just water — the competitive element is the same and no one should feel excluded from the table.

Set up the game early in the night so it runs as an ongoing side activity while other games are happening, with a bracket on a whiteboard tracking who wins each round.

Tournament-style Jingle Juice Pong with a champion crowned at the end of the night adds a genuinely fun throughline to the whole evening without requiring everyone to play at the same time.

19. Guess the Spotify Wrapped Song

This is the 2026 Friendsmas game that feels completely current and personal, because it literally uses your friends’ actual music taste.

Before the party, ask each guest to send the host their top 5 most-played songs of the year from their Spotify Wrapped (or Apple Music Replay). The host compiles these into a playlist.

During the game, the host plays a 5-second clip from one of the submitted songs — and the group has to guess WHOSE Wrapped it came from. You’re not guessing the song title; you’re guessing which friend listens to this.

And that is a fundamentally different, much more revealing, and deeply hilarious challenge.

Play it tournament-style: every correct guess earns a point, and the person whose song was correctly identified first has to confirm it and explain the song’s story — when did it take over their life, what were they going through, why is this on their top five.

(This is the part that goes from funny to weirdly touching, just a heads up.) Play through all the songs, tally points at the end, and the person who knows their friends’ music taste best wins.

Bonus: the person whose music taste is most accurately guessed every time gets a ‘Most Predictable’ award, which is both an insult and a compliment.

The Friendsmas twist: add a ‘Shame Playlist’ wildcard.

The host secretly adds three songs that WEREN’T on anyone’s Wrapped — total red herrings from genres no one in the group listens to — and if someone guesses a friend for the red herring song, that friend can either accept the accusation for a laugh or protest loudly that they’ve never heard that song in their life.

The red herrings keep people from playing it safe and just guessing who has the most eclectic taste.

This game works best with a group that already knows each other well, which makes it a perfect late-night Friendsmas game when the energy is warm and comfortable.

20. Christmas Escape Room

This is the Friendsmas game for the group that looks at a regular party and thinks ‘but what if there was also a mission?’

A Christmas Escape Room transforms part of your home into a puzzle-filled holiday adventure — guests work together to ‘escape’ a festive scenario (the elves went on strike, someone stole Santa’s list, the Grinch locked the gift room) by solving a series of interconnected puzzles, cracking codes, finding hidden clues, and unlocking the final answer before a 45-minute timer runs out.

It’s collaborative, chaotic, and genuinely impressive as a party centerpiece.

The easiest way to host this is with a downloadable escape room kit — search Etsy for ‘Christmas escape room printable’ and you’ll find complete kits for $8–$15 that include all clues, puzzle sheets, code locks, and instructions.

Set it up in one room or across two areas of your home before guests arrive, and designate one person (the host or a designated ‘Game Master’) who knows the solution and can give hints without spoiling.

Divide into teams if you have a large group — two teams running the same escape room simultaneously and racing each other doubles the competitive energy significantly.

If you want to go fully DIY, the core mechanic is simple: clue A leads to clue B leads to clue C leads to a final combination that opens a lockbox (actual lockboxes are like $8 on Amazon and reusable for every game night forever).

A Friendsmas scenario might involve decoding a list of ‘naughty’ behaviors written in Christmas emoji, unscrambling gift tags to find a hidden message, and using a UV light (party favor pens work) to find an invisible clue written on a card.

The production level can be as high or low as your time allows — even a simple three-puzzle chain will blow your guests’ minds if they weren’t expecting it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What games should you play at a Friendsmas party?

The best Friendsmas party games are ones that feel personal to your specific friend group — not generic party games that could work at any office party.

Great options include White Elephant / Bad Santa for the gift exchange, Christmas Jeopardy with friend-group categories, Most Likely To with prompts about your actual friends, Christmas Lip Sync Battle, and a Christmas Movie Drinking Game for 21+ groups.

Mix active, printable, and quiet games so the energy shifts throughout the night. Aim for a mix of silly, competitive, and low-key games so every personality type in your group has a moment.

What is the difference between Friendsmas and Friendsgiving?

Friendsgiving is a pre-Thanksgiving (or Thanksgiving-adjacent) celebration with your chosen family — it focuses on a shared meal and gratitude, typically in November.

Friendsmas is the Christmas version: a festive celebration with your closest friends that includes holiday decor, gift exchanges, Christmas games, and all things December.

Friendsmas is more likely to involve a gift swap like White Elephant, Christmas-specific games, and holiday movies, while Friendsgiving centers more around a Thanksgiving-style dinner.

Both celebrate the same core idea — that your friends ARE your family — just at different times of year with different holiday vibes.

How do you play White Elephant at a Friendsmas party?

White Elephant (also called Bad Santa or Dirty Santa) works like this: every guest brings one wrapped gift within a set price range (usually $20–$30). Everyone draws a number to determine turn order. Player 1 picks and opens a gift from the pool.

Each subsequent player can either open a new gift OR steal an already-opened one from another player. The person who gets stolen from then opens a new gift or steals from someone else. A gift is typically locked after being stolen three times.

The game ends when all gifts have been opened. For a Friendsmas twist, add Veto Cards — each player gets one card to block a steal on their gift during the whole game.

What are fun drinking games to play at Friendsmas?

For a 21+ Friendsmas, the three best drinking games are: (1) Christmas Movie Drinking Game — put on a holiday classic and take a sip every time a specific trigger happens in the film; (2) Naughty or Nice Dares — draw a card from the Nice or Naughty pile and complete a dare or take a drink; and (3) Jingle Juice Pong — a festive spin on beer pong with renamed cups (The Star, The Reindeer, The Elves) and Friendsmas-specific rules like the Blizzard bonus.

Always include a non-alcoholic option for sober guests so everyone can participate in the competitive element.

What are good icebreaker games for a Friendsmas party?

The best Friendsmas icebreakers are low-pressure and conversational. Unpopular Christmas Opinions (write your most controversial holiday take anonymously, guess who wrote what) is perfect because it starts conversation immediately without requiring performance.

Most Likely To: Friend Group works great early in the night because it’s quick, requires no setup, and gets people laughing fast.

If some guests don’t know each other, Friendsmas Scattergories is a great equalizer because it’s structured and everyone plays simultaneously without needing to know each other’s inside jokes yet.

How do you play the Left Right gift exchange game at Friendsmas?

The Left Right gift exchange is played by having everyone sit in a circle, each holding their wrapped gift. The host reads a holiday story aloud — one filled with the words ‘left’ and ‘right.’

Every time the word ‘left’ is read, everyone passes their gift to the left. Every time ‘right’ is read, everyone passes right. At the end of the story, whoever is holding your gift keeps it.

It’s a great low-chaos alternative to White Elephant for groups who want a gift exchange without the competitive stealing element. You can find free Left Right Christmas stories online to print and read aloud.

What are the best printable games for a Friendsmas party?

The best printable Friendsmas party games are ones that work simultaneously for a large group and require minimal host facilitation once printed.

Top picks: Friendsmas Scattergories (everyone plays at once with matching category sheets and a letter dice roll), Christmas Jeopardy: Friendsmas Edition (a team trivia board you can project or print), and the Christmas Logic Puzzle (a self-contained deductive puzzle that keeps people quietly competitive).

Printables are especially great for filling lulls between active games and give guests something to do during the appetizer or cocktail hour before the main group games kick off.

What are fun outdoor or active games to play at Friendsmas?

If your Friendsmas has outdoor space or a large living area, the most active game options from this list are Christmas Lip Sync Battle (needs a stage area), Jingle Juice Pong (needs a long table), and the Christmas Song Lyric Battle (needs room for two teams to face off with a buzzer).

For outdoor Friendsmas gatherings, you can also do a Snowball Toss relay using marshmallows or white pom-poms, or turn the Ugly Sweater Runway into a literal outdoor fashion show on the porch.

The Escape Room works great across multiple rooms and is the most physically interactive indoor game on the list.

How many games should you plan for a Friendsmas party?

For a 3–4 hour Friendsmas, plan 4–6 games total — but stage them intentionally.

Start with one icebreaker (Unpopular Christmas Opinions or Most Likely To), move into a main event game that everyone plays together (White Elephant, Jeopardy, or Escape Room), add one or two shorter active games mid-party (Song Lyric Battle, Lip Sync Battle), leave a printable or two on the table for guests to pick up whenever, and end with a wind-down quiet game or drinking game for whoever’s still going.

Having 20 games on this list doesn’t mean playing all 20 in one night — pick your lineup based on your group size and energy level.

What are good Friendsmas party games for large groups of adults?

For large Friendsmas groups (12+ adults), the best games are ones that work with teams or allow simultaneous play.

Top picks: Christmas Jeopardy: Friendsmas Edition (teams of 4–6 compete), White Elephant / Bad Santa (scales to any size), Christmas Murder Mystery (assign more characters for bigger groups), Jingle Juice Pong (run as a tournament bracket), and Most Likely To: Friend Group (works with any size since everyone participates each round).

Avoid games that require one person to perform while everyone else watches — those stall out with large groups. Printable games like Scattergories and the Logic Puzzle also work great as simultaneous activities for big parties.

There you have it — 20 Friendsmas party games that are actually worth playing, built for the friend group that deserves a Christmas celebration as good as they are.

Print the Scattergories sheets, queue up the movie drinking game triggers, and maybe start plotting your White Elephant Veto Card strategy now. Whatever lineup you pick for your night, the point is the same: your chosen family, your rules, your chaos.

Pin this for later so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel next December, and if you’re still sorting out what to actually put in that White Elephant pile, the 2025 Christmas Gift Guide and this Christmas budgeting guide will save you.

Merry Friendsmas, genuinely. 🎄

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