PIN THE NOSE ON RUDOLPH
5 mins
Yes, it’s essentially ‘pin the tail on the donkey’, but where would you possibly find a donkey in the Christmas story?
Pick an eager young person to play ‘Rudolph’ and another to play the ‘pinner’. Give the pinner a red pom-pom with double-sided tape attached and encourage them to stick it as close as possible to ‘Rudolph’s’ nose while blindfolded. Rudolph has ten seconds of movement time during which he or she must continuously make reindeer noises (nope, we’ve no idea what they are either) before staying silent and still while the pinner gets 20 seconds to find Rudolph and attach the nose. Award points for skill and accuracy. Repeat with different pairs.
Christmas present equivalent: Minimal effort required – the gift-card.
SCROOGE MC-SLEIGH
10 mins
Ever so slightly similar to ‘Lifeboats’, but with Scrooge instead of sharks and sleighs instead of lifeboats.
Place large pieces of paper / mats / rugs (ratio of 1:4 rugs to players) on the floor, and explain that these represent ‘sleighs’ that will keep them safe from the evil grasp of Ebenezer Scrooge. The players should move around, avoiding the sleighs until ‘Scrooge’ (a nominated player who retains the role for the whole game) calls out ‘Sleigh-ride’ and a number. On hearing this, players jump upon a sleigh with the appropriate number of other players. So if Scrooge calls out ‘sleighride five’, players must get onto a sleigh with four other people. Anyone caught by Scrooge is out. Continue until all are caught, then swap Scrooges.
Christmas present equivalent: Simple and straightforward – a pair of socks.
CARROT EATING COMPETITION
10 mins
One of the most peculiar Christmas traditions involves leaving snacks for Father Christmas and his reindeer. Although I suspect that the natural food choice of reindeers is not actually carrots, it certainly makes for a fun game.
Prepare a pile of carrots – enough for one for each player – and divide your group into two even teams. Place the carrots on two plates at one end of the room and line each team up opposite a plate. Explain that they are teams of reindeer, and that they need to eat their carrots before they can go anywhere. One at a time, each team member needs to make their way to the plate of carrots, travelling on all fours just like a reindeer. Without using their hands (again like a reindeer), they need to eat a carrot before returning to their team and letting the next team member go. The winning team is the first to consume all their carrots and gather as a team in a reindeer-pulling-a-sleigh formation. More extravagant groups might want to play this game as Father Christmases, eating mince pies rather than carrots.
Christmas present equivalent: All you need to do is wash carrots – a chocolate selection pack.
MAGI-MIND
The old board game Mastermind is the inspiration behind this final game, given a biblical twist by the connection of the Magi.
Divide your group into teams of four and play them off against each other in pairs of teams. One team in each pair represents the Magi, who are giving gifts to the baby Jesus: gold, frankincense, myrrh or socks (one gift per wise person). The other team represents the new family who are going to play everyone’s favourite game / incredible family ritual: guess what the present is.
The Magi team secretly chooses a combination of the four gifts (gifts can be repeated) and names which wise man they came from. Was it Balthazar, Gaspar, Melchior or our bonus fourth gift-giver – Doris? The other team has to work out who gives which gift by suggesting a combination of gifts eg Balthazar – Socks, Gaspar – Gold, Melchior – Socks, Doris – Myrrh.
The wise men then give feedback on this to the family team through the medium of stars and camels. For every right gift allocated to the right giver, one of the magi team becomes a star and stands in a star shape. For every correct gift put with the wrong giver, one of the team becomes a camel (best impressions please). At the end of each round the family team receives a potential combination of stars and camels.
By using their brains and taking more guesses, the family team has to see how many turns it takes to correctly guess the correct gifts / giver combinations. Once they get it right, swap over and see how many turns the other team takes to solve the game. You can make this game more active by dressing up the ‘Magi team’, or having actual representations of the gifts.
Christmas present equivalent: Thought, mental effort and brain power required - a board game for all the family.
Jimmy Young is a curate at St Mary’s Church in Horsham.
