From corporate party games to office party themes, this blog has served up a lot of inspiration for work fun over the years. Well, we’re at it again. And this time, we’re helping to liven up your company holiday party with some games that are truly fun and take the old “white elephant” to the next level.

1. Bring Your Own Props (BYOP) – Ask each guest to bring his or her own holiday themed props for the photo booth. Once the ice has been broken and everyone is comfortable, announce the contest and bust out the photo booth. Before departing, guests must vote on their favorite photos. You could use an app like Woobox to manage the voting. Be sure to include special categories that are relevant to your group, like “funniest”, “best looking” and “most spirited” holiday photo.

Fun Holiday Photo Booth Prop Ideas:

  • Santa hat

  • Reindeer antlers

  • Candy canes of all sizes

  • Wreaths

  • Ugly sweaters

  • Fake snow

  • Rudolph nose

  • Winter hats

  • Fun signs (i.e. “naughty” and “nice”)

  • Frosty the Snowman style hat

  • Santa beard

  • Warm mittens, scarves and blankets

  • Ornaments

  • Mistletoe

  • Holiday lights

2. Santa’s Orders – Designate someone to be Santa. Create a short list of holiday themed ‘orders’ for Santa to give such as hanging lights, running reindeer or caroling. Hanging lights requires 3 people, running reindeer requires 2 and caroling requires 4. When Santa calls out these orders, the group must arrange themselves into the correct number of people per group. Those who do not complete the order correctly will be eliminated. Great for large groups in a large space. You may not ever have a real winner, but it’s a great way to have fun and get everybody moving.

3. Snowball Dodgeball – Great for smaller, active teams who don’t mind a little friendly competition. Use a white kickball to give a snowy effect. Split the group into two teams and follow the traditional rules of dodgeball. Get as creative as you want with the theme beyond the “snow ball” itself, but be sure to have a prize that’s on-point for the winners.

4. Name That Holiday Tune – Prepare a playlist with popular holiday music. Then, everyone simply has to listen! Play 10 seconds of each song and have each guest keep track of their answers on a piece of paper. Whichever guest guesses the most song titles and artists wins!

5. Holiday Mad Libs – Create a story about your founder or guest of honor and other key players at the event. Be sure to craft the story so that it will be funny no matter which word is used to fill in the blanks. Then have people shout in verbs, nouns, adjectives, etc. Put the full story on the big screen for a hilarious holiday story time.

6. North Pole / South Pole – This is a holiday themed “get to know you” game that gets people up and moving without requiring too much physical activity. Ask a variety of questions that start with “switch sides if”, and finish it with a holiday themed question about themselves. If the question rings true for them personally, they must go to the other “pole”. There will be no real winner but this is a great ice breaker and it’s fun to see people’s answers.

“Get to Know You” Holiday Question Ideas

  • you wait until the last minute to do your holiday shopping

  • you have ever regifted a gift

  • you like egg nog

  • you like winter better than summer

  • you have to buy gifts for more than 10 people

  • you truly enjoy holiday music

  • you start holiday shopping before Thanksgiving

7. White Elephant Dice Game – have a $15 white elephant gift exchange with three twists: 1) tell half the people to buy silly and outlandish gifts and half to buy gifts people actually want. 2) Read the following poem. When the word ‘left’ is read, everyone passes their gift to the left. When the word ‘right’ is read, everyone passes to the right. 3) Create a huge dice out of a cardboard box or piece of foam to indicate how many passes right or left guests will do at the end of the poem. Get rolling!

8. Candy Canes – This is a holiday take on the classic card game “Spoons”. Rather than spoons, use candy canes. This is a great option for smaller groups. For larger groups, do a tournament style round of Candy Canes where the winners of each table will face off in a final round with a grand prize for the winner.

9. Guess the Holiday Character – Create a bunch of sticky labels in any way you like (name tags, masking tape or something fancier to suit your liking). Print or write the names of famous holiday characters on each label. Then, without showing guests the name on the label, stick it to their back. Everyone mingles around the room asking “yes” or “no” questions only about who they are. The key is that only one question can be asked at a time. Once a person thinks they know who they are, they can guess and remove their label if correct. Have a prize table with items and as people guess correctly, they get to choose their prize.

Holiday Character Ideas:

  • “The Grinch”

  • Clark Griswold

  • Santa Claus

  • Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

  • Mrs. Claus

  • Ebeneezer Scrooge

  • An elf

  • Ralphie from a Christmas Story

  • A new year baby

  • The Ghost of Christmas Present

  • The Ghost of Christmas Past

  • Cousin Eddie

  • Elf on the Shelf

  • Tiny Tim

  • Kevin McCallister

  • Elf (Will Ferrell)

10. Christmas Tree Prize Game – One thing gets people’s attention and that is cash! Get creative by creating a replica of a Christmas tree, filling ornaments, or even just putting envelopes on a tree. Fill each “ornament” with various items: gag gifts, some smaller bills and a couple of $100 bills or more! The tree and number of prizes can be as big as your group. It’s up to you how you want to decide who goes first. You could go from oldest to youngest or most senior employee to least. But the idea is each person gets one item. Some will be big winners and some will just have a novelty item.

Although the company holiday party might be dreaded by some, there’s no reason you can’t foster a little fun and help your staff win prizes. We hope you enjoy these company holiday party games and if you have new ideas, please leave them for us in the comments.