We are gearing up for some holiday parties coming up next week! Food, drinks, guests and decor are always the big details of any party… but what are some games to play or activities to host during? Here are a few ideas! We hope that you’ll play one (or a few) with your friends and family this year!

Ugly Sweater Contest – self explanatory and always a fun one to see who will come out with the most absurd of sweaters! We’ve seen light up ones, ones with multiple bells attached, one with a plush elf hanging on… Show us what you got!

Steal-A-Gift or Beg/Borrow/Steal – a fun gift exchange game!
from World of Christmas: In this gift exchange game, guests are allowed to steal one another’s presents. Make your guests draw numbers out of a bowl to determine the order of gift selection. Then make everyone sit in a circle and let the person who drew the number “1″ begin the game by selecting a gift from the pile and unwrapping it. The second player can then choose to either steal the first player’s gift or select an unwrapped gift from the pile. Each remaining player can either steal a previous player’s gift or select an unwrapped one. Once everyone has had a turn, the first player can decide to keep her gift or steal another player’s gift.

Another variation on that gift exchange game is the White Elephant (also know as Dirty Santa) Gift Exchange where gifts are usually humorous gag gifts.

Here’s one for the kids – Musical Gift! Have a group of kids sit in a circle, have them pass a pre-wrapped gift (wrapped in MANY MANY layers of wrapping paper) around the circle as a Christmas carol plays. When you stop the music, the child holding the gift unwraps one layer of wrapping paper! Then start up the music again to continue the game. Start and stop the music like in Musical Chairs until the last wrapping paper layer is ripped off and the gift is revealed! Prepare enough wrapped gifts for each child.

Let’s not forget a Cookie Exchange! Have your guests bring a batch of their favorite cookies (and extra for eating)… supply containers for you and your guests to combine a delicious variety of everyone’s contributions to be packaged as gifts to give to others (or just keep for yourself). Also, be sure to ask guests to bring copies of their recipes to share! Check out these cute holiday packaging ideas from Sparkle Daisy!

Cheers to a happy and warm and festive Holiday season!

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