Here’s how it works. Create a dress-up box with a Santa costume and other items that Santa might or might not wear. You want to have a full-bore Santa costume, so you can either rent one or purchase one if you think it will get used years after. They can be found for around $100 or maybe a little less if you buy one at a costume shop that’s used.

You’ll put the Santa suit in a large suitcase or trunk. Be sure you have as many Santa items as possible; for example, you want to have a pair of boots, gloves, a big belt, etc. Then in the trunk or suitcase, mix in other items, like jewelry, hats, socks, shoes and feather boas. It’s probably obvious where this is going.

At the Christmas party, someone volunteers to play the game. Ideally, you’ll have several volunteers so you can time people and award a prize for fastest or most interesting, or whatever works based for your party.

The chosen person gets blindfolded and stripped down to their bare essentials. No, it’s not that kind of game, but if a woman is wearing a sweater over a T-shirt and shoes, the shoes and the sweater can be removed, so she has less on her to begin with. Once the person is blindfolded, begin timing them. Tell them they must dress Santa as quickly as possible in his Santa suit only, nothing else. To spice up the game and make it more interesting, be sure to include some items in the trunk that might feel like Santa items, but aren’t. For example, you’ll have Santa’s black gloves in the trunk, but also include a pair or two of garden gloves, and Santa has a belt, but you could include other belts as well. Be sure to include several hats (even a princess hat, which might feel like a Santa hat to a disoriented participant).

Once Santa is dressed, stop the timer and take the blindfold off. Everyone can get a good laugh at the result. Santa might have his suit on, but he might also be wearing a robe. Or he might be in his suit, but with garden gloves, a rhinestone belt and a princess hat. Be sure to take pictures of your good sport and move to the next participant. It’s better if the other players aren’t in the room, since many might remember the various items in the trunk and make mental notes about what to ignore and what to use.

After the Santas are done with their dressing and the requisite pictures have been taken, decide on a winner. Is the winner the Santa who dressed in 45 seconds, or the one that wore the garden gloves, princess hat and rhinestone belt combination? It’s a tough call, but a winner must be crowned, so to speak. You can award prizes (Santa hats filled with candy are fun) or you can keep this all in fun and let the good sports know the fun is in the silly playing.

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To begin this game, you need a cardboard cutout of Santa. This can be purchased at some party stores, or even little gift shops. It doesn’t have to be large, but it should be a big face of Santa. You can also find these at educational supply stores, or teacher supply stores, in the section of other cardboard decoration items that teachers put on classroom walls.

Once you get Santa’s face home, cut off his beard. That’s right, cut if clean off. There’s no point in pinning Santa’s beard on him if it’s already there, right? The beard you sliced off can either be thrown away or keep it to tape back up later, if you want to use Santa’s face for another game or as decoration.

Now, you can create several beards out of different items. It’s easy to take a piece of thick cardstock and cut the beard out of that, or you can use foam with adhesive backing. You can simply peel the backing off right before it’s used. You could also make the beard out of crumpled white paper, simply computer paper or the like. If you want to get a bit more elaborate, create Santa’s beard out of cotton balls or a large piece of cotton pulled and shaped into the semblance of a beard.

If you have 5 people playing this game, you’ll need 5 beards. 10 people? 10 beards. You get the idea.

You play "pin the beard on Santa’ exactly as you play "pin the tale on the donkey" and similar games. Spin the person around, make sure they are blindfolded and then have them try to replace Santa’s lost beard. Self-adhesive foam works well because once they place it on the picture of Santa, it’s not going to move, so they can’t change their blindfolded mind and change the position once they pick a position. It’s there for the duration.

No, you can add several variations to this game. For example, you can buy a full-size cardboard Santa (again, the party stores often have these, or school supply stores, or you can make one of your own without much effort). You might have people pin the boots on Santa, pin the hat on Santa, or pin a red button nose on Santa.

One fun (adult) version of this game is to pin the chest hair on Santa. Create a fun cardboard Santa with his suit unbuttoned. It’s a big macho for Santa, but also a bit fun. Then fashion "chest hair" out of yarn, threads or fake fur. Attach some sort of adhesive to the back (foam stickers work, or heavy-duty double-stick tape) and have people try and pin the chest hair on Santa the same way they attached his beard or might attach his boots.

Any good game offers a prize for the winner, and this one is no exception. You could always offer Santa to the winning ‘pinner" or you could have something more elaborate like a Santa goodie bag, filled with Santa pencils, Santa erasers, a Santa coffee mug, and Santa-themed candy.

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These days, it’s more common for people to draw a name out of a hat or get assigned a person to buy for. Or the family creates a type of "white elephant" exchange instead of having family members buy for individuals in particular. So, what many families need is a fun way to exchange the gifts, whether they be for a specific person or whether they are ‘white elephant" type gifts.

If the family members drew names, there are several fun things you can do. The gifts can be hidden and clues given as to the location of the gifts. So, if you arrive at grandma’s house with your gift for Aunt Martha, you might tuck her gift into a kitchen cabinet. Then you’d create a series of clue as to here it is. You might say, "Cinnamon lurks here" or "it’s the hub of the home, but not always the home of the hub".

The clues can be silly or deadly serious. They can be designed so someone will know where to find their present in just minutes, or designed so that it takes a series of clues to get someone right to their gift. If the group is small or the house particularly large, and the participants have the time you can always create a hunt where more than one tip is left and one tip leads to another, which leads to another until the gift is finally found.

Why should the kids have all the fun? Create some fun gift exchange ideas for adults. Whether the family is doing a name draw and exchanging regular gifts or not, you can have some good family fun with a white elephant gift exchange. How about a themed white elephant gift exchange? If the family is into fishing, you could create that as a theme. Everyone must bring a gift related to fishing (this could be anything from sporting goods items, to a singing bass that goes on the wall). It could be a hand held electronic fishing game or a board game with fishing as a theme.

In that same vein, you could create a "cooking" white elephant exchange or a camping themed gift exchange. Again, it’s more about what will please members of the family than anything. Then create some fun games for the exchange itself. Perhaps everyone draws a number and gets to pick their gifts from the pile in the middle based on their number. Perhaps you begin the game that way, but then also people to ‘steal’ someone else’s gift if they choose.

You can require that the gift recipient shakes a gift, studies a gift and makes a good, educated guess as to its contents before opening it. If they are right, they can "steal" someone else’s gift, but if they are wrong, they keep theirs. Add to the silliness factor by playing a card game and dictating that people can’t get their gift and open it until they win a hand in the card game (ideally something fairly quick like poker or rummy).

The idea behind any family gift exchange should be enjoying each other’s company and enjoying the Christmas spirit. As long as it’s fun and engaging, there’s no reason why the adults in the family can’t have some fun games for exchanging gifts just the kids might.

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One obvious choice for some fun at the office during the holidays is to have a party. You could have several, in fact. How about a cookie exchange party? Plan to do this at lunchtime one day, and during that block of time, everyone brings several dozen cookies they have made. You have to set a particular number of cookies everyone brings. Because once everyone has an empty plate, they go around the table picking up cookies that look good to them and place them on their empty paper plate. If everyone brought 3 dozen cookies, say, then everyone gets to take home 3 dozen cookies. This is not a particularly unique idea, but one that brings a bit of fun into the workplace.

Nothing brings people together like a group activity designed to help others. What if your officemates came up with an activity designed to help people less fortunate at the holidays? You might adopt a local family and everyone in the office purchases items for that family. You might choose to purchase Christmas trees for needy families. If the public visits your office often, you might even begin a "sharing" tree and people can bring items to put under the tree for needy families or children. As a group activity, the office workers can then deliver these items to the needy.

Keeping in mind whether or not the public visits your workplace, you might choose to decorate. Why not have a Christmas tree decorating event? Everyone brings 6 ornaments and as a group activity, everyone decorates the tree. This is a good way to build team spirit and decorate your workplace at the same time.

Don’t forget to institute a "secret Santa" event at work, where you secretly buy gifts for someone and have some type of gift exchange. But what about a "Santa’s helper" activity? Someone in the group has to begin this on the sly. Essentially, this first person (the only one in the know about how the whole thing began) puts together a little gift. Ideally, it’s a basket with a few gift items in it. They might be decorative items, or baked goods or even bath items. Attach a card saying that "Santa’s helper" dropped by and brought these items. Now the person who received the "helper’s" gift must put together a little something for someone else and – again on the sly – deliver it to the next person. It continues until everyone has received a visit from "Santa’s helper".

The particularly festive office might want to have someone come in and do a cooking demonstration. If there are enough people interested, you can hire a cook or baker to come into your office on your lunch hour and do a demonstration or class. Say you want to bake but don’t know what to bake this year. A baker can come in and demonstrate cookies or other goodies you might not have thought to make. Or someone can come in with ideas and samples for the perfect Christmas meal. These ideas are perfect for the environment where people work many hours and are quite busy but still want to do their regular cooking and baking each year.

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One of the most popular office games involving Christmas gifts is the "white elephant" gift exchange. The rules can vary depending on the office and participants, but generally it works something like this. Each person participating purchases a gift not to exceed a certain dollar amount (determined in advance and might range from $5 to $20, again depending on the group). The object here is a fun gift, so anything particularly practical is not welcome. You’re looking for unusual and interesting, perhaps funny, and something other people will want.

Everyone who’s participating in the exchange gets a number (the number should be the same as the number of presents). The numbers should be they drawn out of a hat or something else (perhaps a Santa hat, in recognition of the season?). So, the person who draws number "1" goes first and picks a present. They open it and keep it. The second person can either pick a different present or they can "steal" the first present. They can’t open a present until they are sure they are keeping their choice and not picking the first gift. This continues until everyone has a present. Any present that’s been opened can be subject to stealing, but a gift can only be stolen three times.

At the end of the game, the person who was the first to open a present can steal a gift if they choose, since they didn’t have an opportunity earlier.

In this game there’s always one gift that everyone wants and will steal over and over again. What makes it fun is trying to figure out who is going to get the most coveted gift. In some cases, people can end up with the gift they brought.

Originally the "white elephant" gift exchange was a way for people to "regift" or give someone a gift they themselves received and don’t want. For a fun twist, you could ask people to bring something from their home like that, or you can require they purchase something (with the aforementioned limit on spending).

There are many varieties of the Secret Santa game, which is so popular in offices, but one option that’s fun involves putting a dollar limit on the purchase and having participants actually make "Santa lists". Here’s how it works: Those participating create a little list for "Santa". There should also be a dollar limit placed on this gift exchange, so if that is $10, then people should only list items on their Santa list that can be purchased for $10 or less.

Everyone who is participating draws a list out of a hat, or some other object, and sets about shopping for that person. They know who they are shopping for, but the recipient doesn’t. On exchange day, the Secret Santas must deliver the gifts to their officemates’ desks without being seen. Those participating can decide if they want people to sign the cards attached to the gifts, or if the secret should stay a secret. If they choose the latter, gift giving can be interesting, since it’s anonymous, but many people choose to have cards signed so in the end, people who to thank for their gifts.

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But look at modern times: we have nearly forgotten all about it and it is no longer played. It is as if buried deep under earth. However, there is no reason why you cannot revive this age old traditional game by playing it again this Christmas. Put others to shame by showing them that you have not forgotten the traditional rituals!

I must warn you though: this game is not child’s play! If children are going to participate in it, you, as an adult, should make sure that no harm comes upon them!

Okay, here are the steps on how to play the game:

1. Collect a dry fruit and several raisins and place them on a plate. Place the plate so high that it is out of everyone’s reach. Pour brandy on the fruit, and then put out the burning candles. Light the brandy with a flame. The game begins!

2. Ask your entire family to surround the blazing brandy. Their challenge is to snatch the fruit from within the flames, put out the flames and then eat the fruit. Did I say that the game is dangerous?

3. While your family members are busy snatching the fruit from the flames, play the Snap Dragon song in the background. If you can get an MP3 of the song, fine; if not, you can sing the song yourself. The lyrics of the song should convey the idea that if you are brave and not greedy, you won’t get hurt. The bold person always get the things they want!

Believe it or not, this is a wonderful Christmas game, but be sure to supervise the children carefully! Playing old games can not only make your Christmas truly special but also take you on a romantic ride consisting of old and cherished traditions and memories! Merry Christmas and have fun playing the Snap Dragon game!

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There are several activities you can impose to make the gift buying interesting. For example, you can declare that one of the rules of the gift exchange is that gifts must be handmade or put together in some way and not purchased. You can take this a step further by declaring that the gifts feature the school’s colors in abundance. Perhaps they might also somehow incorporate the school’s mascot.

But once the gifts are ready, there are many fun exchange activities and games that can be used to make this even fun and memorable for the kids.

Definitely in a gift exchange with children, there should be a low dollar limit on the gifts (such at $5).

Another fun activity for gift giving among children in a classroom is to have each child make a game piece for an unknown game board. Everyone brings a handcrafted game piece (there can be rules as to its size, for example, no larger than 2 inches high), to play with on the communal game board.

The "game board" can be nothing more than a large rug that’s been fashioned into some sort of game, ideally a Christmas-themed game. Always popular is "get Santa back to the North Pole" played much like Chutes and Ladders or Candyland. Since most children know how to play these games, the learning curve is small and at the Christmas party, they can get to playing right away. To keep with the gift exchange idea, each child can be asked to bring their handcrafted game piece wrapped and the pieces can be exchanged as gifts before everyone plays on the big game board.

Children enjoy buying gifts for other people, so having them draw names is an excellent activity for a gift exchange. To add a twist, make the gift activity interesting by telling the children they can’t tell their recipient they are buying for them. Then create a fun activity during the exchange itself to play up the "mystery" element of the gift exchange.

In the mystery scenario, you can have each child open their gift, then try and figure out who it is from. If the children were asked to make a gift, this can be particularly fun, as some children might have drawing skills, or woodworking skills which might make it easier or harder for the other children to decide who have them a gift.

As the children open the gifts, have them guess who the gift is from. If they are wrong, they have to do a little dance or silly physical act before making another guess. This repeats until they guess the right giver of the gift they have been given.

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Let’s start with a few relay race ideas. All kids love relay races! A really fun relay that kids love is pass the ornament. In this game, each team gets one ornament (a lightweight, basic thin glass one is fine) and a straw. They must blow through the straw to get the ornament down the line, then the next child blows on their straw to get the ornament back down the line. Make sure each child has a fresh straw, as you don’t want everyone to get sick.

This next simple relay game can be played with just about anything that signifies Christmas. You could have the children pass a Santa hat (perhaps requiring them to wear the hat as they run down the line) or have them wear Christmas socks that they then have to take off and get to the next child during the relay. Have the children pair off in teams. The team that finishes the relay first should get a special Christmas gift prize.

Another great Christmas game for kids is the candy cane relay. Give each team 4 candy canes (and be sure to have a few more in case some break) and have the child who’s running hold the candy canes between their fingers, with the crooked part of the cane hanging over their fingers. But tell them not to use their thumbs. The canes should be just carefully perched between their fingers.

The children run to their teammate, exchange the candy canes (again, only using fingers), and that teammate runs to the other end and does the same. The game is over when only one team still has candy canes that haven’t dropped on the floor.

"Santa Says" is a fun game that all children will know how to play because it’s just like "Simon Says". Before playing it, confirm that each child is familiar with "Simon Says" and then create a series of orders from "Santa", like "Santa says, touch your toes", "Santa says bend your knees" and so on. But sometimes leave the "Santa says" part off and trick the children. Always a popular children’s game!

Young children can play the Christmas "clue" game as long as the questions are kept to their knowledge of various things surrounding Christmas. The game is played like this: the adults gives a series of clues about something Christmas related and keep giving clues until someone shouts out the answer. It might go something like this:
Answer: Santa’s sleigh;
Clue: I’m thinking of something big;
Clue: It helps Santa on Christmas Eve;
Clue: It holds a lot of presents;
Clue: It’s very fast;

You keep giving clues until he children figure out the answer. Since these are young children, don’t give clues that are too difficult or beyond their knowledge.

Young children love the "freeze dance" which is often played in preschool and kindergarten. Only in this game, you create a Christmas freeze dance: here you play some Christmas music, let the children do a little dance, then turn the music off and the children must "freeze". If there will be several sit-down games played at the party, this is a great way to let the children use some energy before they have to sit down and focus on the other games.

Kids love toss games, so why not create a snowball toss game at Santa’s belly? Get or make a large cardboard cutout of Santa Claus and cut a hole in his stomach. You can create snowballs out of several things. Take plastic bags and put mini marshmallows inside, or use Styrofoam balls. If you use the latter, don’t make the children throw the "snowballs" very far since the Styrofoam won’t go that far. Have the children stand a distance back from Frosty (you can determine this depending on the age of the children and space you have available) and have them toss the snowballs into Santa’s tummy. First one to get all 3 snowballs in the tummy wins a prize!

Keep your children delighted this holiday season with some of the fun Christmas games.

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If this is a group that’s not afraid of looking silly, here’s just the game. Provide a pair of pantyhose for each team and a total of 8 balloons. When the game begins, the team should begin blowing up the balloons and the inflated balloons have to be put into the legs of the pantyhose. To make this game fair, the teams should be of equal number and the pantyhose not a petite size.

The game ends when someone gets all their balloons into the legs of the pantyhose, "wears" the antlers and sings the first verse of "Jingle Bells". Be sure to make everyone finish the game, however, so you can get a great picture of everyone in his or her pantyhose antlers.

For a fun relay-type game, how about making a Santa beard? Make a big bowl of cotton balls and get a container of Vaseline. Put some Vaseline on the chins of each member of each team (ideally, 2 teams of about 5 people each). The first players in line run to the bowl of cotton balls and sticks their chin in trying to get as many to stick to the Vaseline as possible. They run to the back of their line, so the next player can have a turn.

When everyone on a team has a beard, that team wins. As with the other game, be sure to take lots of pictures of everyone wearing their Santa beards. Also have plenty of towels and water to get the Vaseline off.

This next game is great for a smaller group of people who are open to a more quiet game. This is about packing Santa’s bag. You start by saying, "I packed Santa’s bag and in it I put pajamas." The next person continues with, "I packed Santa’s bag and in it I put pajamas, and toilet paper." Each person continues, each time adding a new item, but also listing the items that were added before. You are out of the game when you miss an item. Someone could be sitting outside the game keeping a list of all the items so if the game goes on for a bit, you will know if someone misses an item.

If you’re having a Christmas party for adults, why not offer up a fun game that’s sure to remind them of a childhood favorite? Create a Christmas scavenger hunt. You will tell people to create teams (about 4 people per team is adequate, but you might want to have larger or smaller teams depending on the size of your party). Make a list of items they need to return with.

If you choose to keep the searching local, either at your home or in the neighborhood, include items like a miniature light string, a piece of holly, a leave off a poinsettia plant, and the like. If you choose to have guests traipse all over town for items, you can have even more fun. You might require them to purchase a holly-decorated box of tissue, or have them provide photo proof that they went down your city’s Christmas Tree Lane. Whatever it is, be creative and enjoy the process. People love this game, not only because it reminds them of childhood, but it helps people get to know other party guests they might know that well and it’s a game that gets people working together, which can always be fun.

Everyone enjoys Hershey’s kisses at Christmas. Divide your group into two teams and have two bowls of Hershey’s kisses at the other end of the room. Give each team one set of oversized mittens or gloves. The first person in line runs to the bowl of kisses, and has to unwrap the kiss while wearing the oversized mittens/gloves and pop the kiss into their mouth. They run back, tag the next person in line, and exchange the mittens/gloves and the next person runs forward to get a chocolate kiss. The winning team is the one in which all members have enjoyed a kiss first.

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