For many families, games are a big tradition for Christmas Day or anytime extended family or guests come to visit. If you’re looking for some inspiration for this year, then here are some Christmas games night ideas which has suggestions for families, college kids and even for the bigger kids of the family.

Exploding Kittens

Christmas Games Night Ideas

We discovered this game when we went on our holiday to Longlands in Devon back in September and it was something we found ourselves playing every night! This game was actually created with Kickstarter and reached its goal in a matter of just eight minutes as well as setting the record for most backers in Kickstarter history. This thrilling card game had the whole family laughing and joking around.

In the deck of cards are some Exploding Kittens. You play the game by putting the deck face down and taking turns drawing cards until someone draws an Exploding Kitten. When that happens, that person explodes. They are now dead and out of the game. This process continues until there’s only 1 player left, who wins the game. The more cards you draw, the greater your chances of drawing an Exploding Kitten. Of course, there are other cards that can lessen your chances of getting exploded by the exploding kittens such as a See the Future Card to peek at the top few cards in the Draw Pile. If that reveals an Exploding Kitten you could then use a Skip Card to end your turn and avoid drawing it.

Available from Zapals for £6.14

Top Trumps

Christmas Games Night Ideas

What a blast from the past! We used to play Top Trumps in school all the time. You’d get a pack in your stocking and end up taking it to school for break time. There’s a version of Top Trumps for pretty much everyone. Disney, Star Wars, Minions, Movie Stars, Harry Potter – the list goes on! Of course, I’ve just bought a Disney pack to play on Christmas Day after dinner because we’re a very Disney-oriented family.

What’s great about this game is that any amount of people can play Top Trumps. After shuffling and dealing all the cards, each player holds their cards so that they can only see their top card. The player to the dealer’s left begins by reading out a category from the top card (e.g: Height, value 5) the other players then read out the same category from their cards. The person with the best/highest value wins and therefore collects all the top cards and moves them to the bottom of their pile. It’s then their turn to choose a category from the next card.

Available from Toys R Us for £4.99 (heads up – there’s often packs available in lots of Supermarkets such as ASDA or Tesco)

Rummikub

Christmas Games Night Ideas

I’d never heard of this game until my friend told me about it. This is a tile-based game for 2-4 players which combines the elements of the card game rummy and mahjong. There are 104 number tiles in the game (valued 1 to 13 in four different colors, two copies of each) and two jokers. Players have 14 or 16 tiles initially and take turns putting down tiles from their racks into sets (groups or runs) of at least three, drawing a tile if they cannot play.

Available from Tesco for £18.00

What Do You Meme?

Christmas Games Night Ideas

Attention meme lovers! This is the game for you! What Do You Meme is a bit like Cards Against Humanity, you need to pick out of your deck of cards the funniest caption to fit the picture that the judge has shown you. The funniest card to match the photo wins. If you have a kid in college/university or always online, etc. then this is also a great gift idea for them because they’ll have a ton of fun playing it with friends.

Available from Zapals for £13.00

 

Very British Problems

Christmas Games Night Ideas

I’ve been following the Very British Problems account on Twitter for years and the fact they’ve brought out a game is brilliant! Find out how awkward you and your family are by cringing your way through hundreds of question cards. The more traditionally British you are, the funnier the game is.

Available from John Lewis for £22.00

Now That’s What I Call Music

Everyone loves the NOW CDs and so this game is perfect for any music lover! This board game is suitable for 2-6 players aged 8+ and tests your musical knowledge with music trivia questions from the 80s, 90s and 21st century. Mime song titles and sing covers to gain an advantage over your opponents.

Available from Argos for £17.00

Telestrations

This is a game a friend told me she was obsessed with so I had to share it with you. Each player begins by sketching a Telestrations word dictated by the roll of a die. The old fashioned sand timer may limit the amount of time they get to execute their sketch, but it certainly doesn’t limit creativity! Time’s up! All players, all at the same time, pass their sketch to the next player, who must guess what’s been drawn. Players then simultaneously pass their guess, which hopefully matches the original word (or does it??) to the next player who must try to draw the word they see, and so on.

Available from Argos for £17.99

Jackbox

My cousin was adamant that I put this game into the list and after hearing about it, I’ll honour that by telling you about it.  The Jackbox Party Pack games are individual collections of five or so party games, designed for online play by multiple people, including large audiences (up to 100!) To play, use your gamepad, remote or mouse and keyboard to pick the specific game you want to play from the menu. You use the game by playing on your phone, tablet, laptop or other web-enabled device as a controller. The main action of the game happens on your TV (or wherever you launched the game), but players use their own devices to input answers and make choices. Each player will need to go to Jackbox.TV on their phone or other device.

There are different games for each pack, with the first edition including the comedy trivia game You Don’t Know Jack 2015, the hilarious bluffing game Fibbage XL, the bizarre drawing game, Drawful, The racy-as-you-want-to-be fill-in-the-blank word game Word Spud and The wacky-fact-filled Lie Swatter. 

Jackbox brings the classic board games to a digital age and is perfect for parties!

Available from the Jackbox website for $24.99 (around £17) 

What games do you play over Christmas? Which of these tickle your fancy?

Jazz

Jazz is a Disney, tea and pop culture enthusiast with a passion for blogging. Also a proud introvert.

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6 Comments

  1. These look like fun games for a Christmas night! I haven’t played any of these but they look like ones that my family would enjoy. Now that’s what I call music is a game I’d most definitely enjoy. Is there a movie version?

  2. Woooah, what a great list of games!!! The members of our family are known to be VERY competitive, and we’ve always loved games which all of us can join! We only have Monopoly which takes a very long time to finish, so maybe it’s time to change the game (get it? lol sorry!). Thank you so much for sharing your ideas with us! <3

  3. My daughter would LOVE “What Do You Meme”! Exploding Kittens sounds like a bundle of laughs, too.

  4. Top Trumps! What a classic! We have the Star Wars and Harry Potter ones. Great list.

  5. Some great picks here – love the sound of JackBox. Will need to try and get this for the New Years Party!

  6. I haven’t heard of most of these but they sound so much fun! It’s a little late for Christmas, but I’m tempted for the new year!

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