Christmas Party Games

charades, that always seems to go down well.

Sardines - if you don't mind the guests going in all the rooms.

We like this one ....it's a great icebreaker .

Everyone gets a postit note stuck on their back with the name of one of a famous couple....think Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Santa and Mrs Claus etc.

You then have to find your 'partner' with questions that can only be answered yes or no .

My sister bought Who's in the Bag some years ago. It's hilarious and comes out every Christmas. You pull out a card from the bag on which are the names of three people, fictional or real. You have to describe as many as you can to your team before the time runs out. Anyone can play, even fairly young children. It's a hoot!

Take advert pages from magazines and cut out the trade names. Number them and place around the room or on walls. Issue each person with paper and pencil to guess who the advert is for. Interesting to see if adverts register with people and gets them moving around.

At our family does many years ago we used to arrange in two rows. You could do a race with orange under the chin, balloon between knees or match box on nose. First team to pass the item along their row and back. Often hilarious.

Similar to N&G game. Post it note stuck to forehead and you have to ask the crowd questions with one word answers "Am I female" " Am I still alive" to guess which famous person you are.
We've been playing this for years. I see you can buy a boxed version now.

My friend had a game called " Harry One Spot" I think it involved a lipstick. I can't remember any of the rules but I bet someone on GN will know.I just remember my aunty falling off the sofa laughing.

Killer! If you have enough people round the dining table!

For anyone unfamiliar, one card each from a pack, but just one King, and whoever has that is the Killer. Killer has to wink at someone else without anyone else seeing, and that person must then 'die' , and the rest have to work out who the killer is.

Can be good fun with enough people who are a mite p*ssed/merry.

The post-it note but on the forehead so you have to guess who you are, Charades

I played the label on the back one once when we first moved here, so I knew no-one nor what their occupation was, and I was useless. When you found your partner you were stuck with him or her for other games and my partner got impatient with me because I knew nothing about anyone.

If it's friends not family you could ask them all to bring a baby photo and then everyone has to guess who they are.

At a party recently with neighbours we were each given a note with a statement about someone else at the party, (e.g. ' has visited Hong Kong' or 'used to run a Post Office'. We had to go around finding the person. Everyone who completed their question had their name put in a hat and the one drawn out won a small prize. It was a good ice breaker. Quite a bit of preparation though for our hosts.

Oh Boy This really has done it for me. What horrendous ideas!

Games are not compulsory

Not compulsory but usually good fun

As long as you're with a group of like-minded people whom you know well.

Being plonked into the middle of a group of strangers at a party and ending up partnered with someone who was obviously very annoyed at my inadequacies was not much fun - but it was a long time ago and, thank goodness, I've never come across him much since!