The 5 Best Christmas Gift Exchange Games
Growing up, every year we would visit my grandparents for Christmas they would bring out a pile of gifts – one per child in attendance – and we would all play gift exchange games to end up with a present!
It is still my favorite memories from Christmas’ now long past.
I now carry on the Christmas gift games tradition in my own family, switching up the game each year, and it’s something I look forward to every year!
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5 Christmas Gift Exchange Games
Get a sneak peek of our Gift Exchange Games in this quick video!
Roll For It
Start 1-3 dice around the room, depending on the number of guests. Each player rolls once, and then passes the dice.
If they roll a 6, they get to pick a gift from the center pile, or they can choose to “steal” a gift from someone already holding one.
The person who was stolen from can select a new gift from the center. This game continues until the last gift has been picked up from the center.
Right / Left
Read a classic Christmas story, such as “The Night Before Christmas”. Select two keywords that appear frequently in the story.
Let all the guests know that one word means pass your gift to the right while the other word when spoken means to pass your gift to the left.
Read through the story until the end, and then let all the guests open the present they ended up with.
Hot Potato
Have all the guests form a circle and start with a 30-second countdown timer. Start passing one or two unwrapped gifts, depending on the size of the group.
Whoever ends up holding the gift with the timer dings keeps that gift and is out of the game until everyone ends up with a gift.
Musical Chairs
Set a present on each seat around the room and play a favorite Christmas song. Have all the guests circle around the room until the music ends. They can then open the gift at the seat they stopped at.
Hop over to see our printable lists with prompts and questions to play this Musical Chairs Gift Exchange game combined with the truth be told prompts below!
Truth Be Told
Make a set of 10-20 “If you are a…” or “If you have ever…” sayings. Pull one of the slips at random and read it aloud.
Any guest that fits the description has to get up, leaving the gift at their spot, and switch places with someone else who also fit the description.
You can include things like: grandparent, blond, teacher, female, visited another country, gone on a blind date, rode on a motorcycle, etc.
Continue through all of the slips until the last one has been read, then have everyone open their gifts.
Christmas Gift Games Shopping Made Easier
While I love playing gift exchange games, picking out and coming up with a variety of gifts to fit the unique personalities of all of the participants while still keeping the gifts open ended to work for anyone.
I always turn to amazon to find a variety of gifts at affordable prices. Best of all, they ship right to my door!
A few of my favorite gifts for gift exchange games include:
- Over the Door Basketball Hoop Game
- Phase 10 Card Game
- Nesting Bowls with Colander and Measuring Cups
- Nerf Gun & Darts
- Codenames Game
- Eyeshadow Pallet
- Flashlights
- Bath Bombs
All of these gifts are only $10-20! Very affordable and actually things people would like that you can include in your Christmas gift exchange parties!
Once the gifts arrived, it was as easy as wrapping up all the gifts and grabbing a set of dice and a baking dish for this year’s Christmas gift exchange game! I can’t wait to get my family together this year for our gift exchange!
I loved the sound of the key word game. I love reading and that seems like such a fun idea. Thanks for sharing at Weekend Wind-down.
I love these game ideas. We are always looking for new ones to try every year! Thanks so much for sharing this at the Project Parade! Hope to see you there again this week:)
These are really fun ideas, we don’t do much for Christmas with extended family. The kids get to go see their other side of the family. My side doesn’t do anything for Christmas, well except my Dad – my Step Mom and Dad come over on Christmas Eve for “pizza and presents”, a tradition we started a few years back!
What fun games!!! SO saving this post for later.
what some cute ideas. We love the hot potatoe game. Always makes for a good laugh.
I love the hot potatoe game. How fun is that! I am going to play that game at my Christmas party.
We always use roll for it, so fun. I can’t wait to try one of these other ideas this year!
Though I do love participating in gift exchanges, I’ve never thought of doing games like this. Cute idea, especially for the little ones.
These are all fun games. I had only thought of the rob your neighbor game so this gives me some other good ideas!
How fun! I’ve never really thought of doing gift exchanges as a game! Usually we just take turns opening gifts – this is such a better idea!
Fantastic ideas! I needed this since I’ve planned a secret exchange for my daughters cheer team! We’ll be doing one of these!
Hot Potato sounds like a great Christmas game. We’ll have to try that next year.
This sounds like a great way to make gift giving fun. I like the idea doing musical chairs, very cute.
These are all really fun ideas. I think Truth be Told would be a hit at our Christmas!
These are all really fun ideas. We play a game where we “steal” gifts from each other. It’s a blast.
Oh I love playing gift exchange gifts! My favorite is…well I don’t know it’s name. But you start in a circle and one person opens a gift from th center. The next person can either 1 steal that present or open a new one. Once a gift has been “stolen” 3 times it is out of play and the last person with it ends up owning it. The person who gets a gift stolen from them then gets to pick out a new gift to either steal from someone else or open a new gift from the table. Its a lot of fun.
Oh this looks like so much fun! We should definitely do this at work.
What great ideas! We have played a few games at our office holiday party. I don’t think we have played any of these though. I will have to show this post to the group planning the party.
These games sound like so much fun to play. I like the Hot Potato game. I will have to give this one a try.
These games sound super fun! We might have to try one out this year.
I love doing gift exchanges. We do them every year with family and friends, it is very fun tradition to start.
Great ideas, I am coordinating our office party and need help!
Oh how fun! I have not done a gift exchange like that before. We have been talking about doing exchange for the adults in our family, as its getting so big. I will have to let them know these ideas!
How fun!! I would love to do something like this.
I think I am going to try the Roll for It this year, we do a game similar to that with numbered chips at work so the dice version might work out nice at home.