Office Christmas Party Games: 16 Work-Safe Ideas for Any Team

The best office Christmas party games are quick to explain, easy to sit out, and just as fun for the new hire as for the person who's been there 20 years. Below are 16 work-safe holiday party games for work, each with group size, time and setup, sorted into big-room games, small-table games, funny challenges and virtual holiday party games for remote and hybrid teams. Start with the picker table, choose one main game and one or two fillers, and you're done planning.

Our free Office Icebreaker Trivia board. Departments play as teams and the board keeps score.

Jump to: Picker table · Ground rules · Large groups · Small teams · Funny games · Gift swaps · Virtual and hybrid · Run of show · FAQ

Pick the right game for your office party

Most work parties have a 20 to 45 minute window for games, somewhere between the food and the first person saying "I should get going." Pick one anchor game that everyone watches together, plus one or two short ones people can drift in and out of.

Short on time? Trivia, guess the price and the awards cover a big group, a mixed in-person and remote crowd, and the end-of-party wrap-up.

HR-friendly ground rules for work party games

Work parties mix ages, cultures, beliefs and comfort levels. These rules make every game below safer and more fun, and they cost nothing:

• No drinking games, ever. If drinks are served, every game should play exactly the same with a soda in hand.
• Make sitting out a real option. Let people join as a team so nobody is put on the spot alone, and treat "cheering" as a legitimate role. SHRM's guidance on making employees feel included during the holidays recommends keeping parties voluntary and letting a diverse group of employees help plan them.
• Celebrate the season, not only one holiday. Call it a holiday or end-of-year party and mix winter, New Year's and "our year at work" content in with Christmas.
• Keep personal questions light. First jobs and favorite snacks, yes. Relationships, politics, money and bodies, no.
• Nothing physical that requires touching. Skip anything like a human knot. Relays and tossing games are fine.
• Plan for the remote people. If anyone is dialing in, choose games where they can see the board and answer from their own device.

Office Christmas party games for large groups

These anchor games handle 30, 60 or 100 people because everyone plays in teams and watches the same screen.

1. Office trivia on the big screen

• Group size: 6–100+ in teams of 4–10
• Time: 20–40 minutes
• Setup: A laptop connected to the TV or projector

Put a quiz-show board on the screen and play departments against each other. Our free Office Icebreaker Trivia board has 25 questions in five categories: Office Lingo, The Office (the TV show), Big Brands, Work From Home and Snack Break. Coworkers scan the QR code on the screen to turn their phones into buzzers, with no app and no account. Remote teammates can scan the same code from the shared screen on your video call.

Host tip: Open with a 200-point question so every team scores early. Quiet tables loosen up fast once they have points on the board. Want a holiday round too? Pull a category from our Christmas trivia questions.

2. Know your coworkers (with an optional baby-photo round)

• Group size: 6–40
• Time: 25–40 minutes, plus about 5 minutes per person a few days before
• Setup: Everyone answers a few prompts on their phone ahead of time

The game that gets the biggest laughs at work is the one about the people in the room. A few days before the party, everyone answers light prompts like "My first job," "A skill nobody here knows I have" or "My favorite desk snack." At the party, teams guess who said what. Know Your Crew has a Work mode built for this. It turns the answers into a game board, the host can't see anyone's answers until they appear, and anyone can skip any question.

HR note: The "Whose baby is this?" round is optional. Some people don't have childhood photos or would rather not share them, and that should never be a big deal.

3. Guess the holiday song

• Group size: 4–60
• Time: 15–25 minutes
• Setup: Speakers loud enough for the room

Play short clips and let teams race to name the title and artist. Mix holiday hits with songs from several decades so the 25-year-olds and the 55-year-olds each get a round they own. Guess the Song lets you pick genres and decades and plays official 30-second previews until someone buzzes in.

4. Guess the price

• Group size: 10–100 in teams
• Time: 15 minutes
• Setup: 8–10 holiday items (or photos of them) with known prices

Show a giant tin of popcorn, an ugly sweater, a fancy advent calendar, a 12-pack of wrapping paper. Teams write a guess on a card, and the closest without going over gets the point. It works for big rooms because nobody needs to know anything, and it plays fine on a video call with photos on a slide.

5. Paper snowball fight

• Group size: 20–100
• Time: 10 minutes
• Setup: A stack of scrap paper and a tape line down the middle of the room

Everyone writes one fun fact about themselves on a sheet of paper, crumples it into a "snowball" and joins a 60-second snowball fight across the tape line. When the timer stops, each person picks up one snowball, reads the fact aloud and tries to find who wrote it. It's loud, it's silly, and it gets people talking to someone from another department.

6. People bingo

• Group size: 15–100
• Time: 15–20 minutes, during mingling
• Setup: Printed bingo cards and pens

Each square describes a person: "has been to another continent," "can name all of Santa's reindeer," "has never seen snow," "speaks more than one language." Players find a coworker who fits and get their name in the square. First full row wins. This is the best game for breaking up the usual cliques while people are still arriving.

Games for small teams and tables

For departments of 5 to 15, or a big party split into tables.

7. Two truths and a lie: holiday edition

• Group size: 4–12 per table
• Time: 15 minutes
• Setup: None

Each person shares three short statements about their holiday traditions or winter memories, and the table guesses which one is made up. Give people a minute to think first. Nobody enjoys inventing a lie on the spot.

8. Holiday draw-and-guess

• Group size: 6–30
• Time: 15–30 minutes
• Setup: Whiteboard or easel pad, markers, a bowl of prompts, a 60-second timer

One person draws while their team guesses. Use winter prompts that aren't religious: snowman, mittens, ice skating, hot cocoa, gingerbread house, reindeer, New Year's fireworks. On Zoom or Teams, use the built-in whiteboard.

9. Gingerbread house build-off

• Group size: 8–40 in teams of 3–5
• Time: 30–45 minutes
• Setup: Pre-built gingerbread kits, icing, candy, paper plates

Teams decorate a house to a theme like "our office in 2050" or "the break room." Ask a manager or a guest to judge. Building, decorating and naming the house are all real jobs, so everyone has something to do.

Funny office Christmas party games

Low stakes and big laughs, with nothing embarrassing.

10. 60-second holiday challenges

• Group size: 6–40
• Time: 20–30 minutes
• Setup: Plastic cups, shatterproof ornaments, mini candy canes, chopsticks, a timer

Each challenge lasts 60 seconds: stack 21 cups into a pyramid, move mini candy canes from one bowl to another with chopsticks, or toss ornaments into a bucket from behind a line. Teams send a different player each round, so nobody has to do more than one.

11. Gift-wrapping relay

• Group size: 8–30
• Time: 15 minutes
• Setup: Empty boxes of different sizes, wrapping paper, tape, scissors, bows

Each person on the team adds one step (paper, tape, bow) and passes the box on. First team to wrap three boxes wins. Bonus round: wrap while wearing oven mitts.

12. Holiday would you rather

• Group size: Any
• Time: 10 minutes
• Setup: A list of questions

"Would you rather have a snow day every week or a three-day weekend every month?" Everyone moves to one side of the room or votes in the chat, and one person from each side defends the choice. Our list of would you rather questions has a whole work-safe section.

Gift exchange games that stay friendly

13. White elephant or heads-or-tails swap

• Group size: 8–40
• Time: 30–45 minutes
• Setup: Wrapped gifts with a firm, modest price limit; numbered slips or a coin

In white elephant, players draw numbers and either pick a wrapped gift or steal one already opened. If stealing tends to get competitive in your office, try heads or tails: everyone stands holding a gift and puts a hand on their head (heads) or their hip (tails), the host flips a coin, and everyone who guessed right swaps gifts with a neighbor. Play five or six flips and stop. Either way, ban gag gifts that could embarrass anyone and let people skip bringing a gift without explaining why.

Virtual holiday party games for remote and hybrid teams

Games 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8 and 12 all work on a video call. These three were made for one.

14. Desk scavenger hunt

• Group size: 4–50
• Time: 10–15 minutes
• Setup: A list of items

Call out an item ("something red," "the oldest thing on your desk," "a mug with a story") and the first person to hold it up to the camera scores. Keep items easy to find so nobody feels left out by their home setup.

15. Emoji titles in chat

• Group size: Any
• Time: 10–15 minutes
• Setup: One slide or chat message per puzzle

Post a string of emojis that spells a holiday movie or winter song title. First correct answer in the chat gets the point. It's ideal for big all-hands calls where people talking over each other doesn't work.

16. Year-in-review team awards

• Group size: Any
• Time: 15–20 minutes
• Setup: A few silly award categories and a chat poll or paper ballots

Vote on lighthearted awards like "Best Video Call Background," "Most Creative Use of the Office Kitchen" or "Calmest Under a Deadline." Keep every award positive, and make sure each team wins at least one.

For hybrid parties: run the anchor game from one laptop, put it on the conference room TV, and share that same screen on the call. Everyone, in the room or at home, buzzes from their own phone, so remote people aren't stuck shouting answers into a laptop mic.

A 90-minute office party plan

1. First 15 minutes: Food and people bingo while everyone arrives.
2. Next 30 minutes: Big-screen trivia or Know Your Crew, played by department.
3. Next 15 minutes: One funny challenge, like the gift-wrapping relay.
4. Next 20 minutes: The gift swap, optional for anyone who'd rather watch.
5. Last 10 minutes: Year-in-review awards and a thank-you from leadership.

Scheduling tip: SHRM's guidance suggests holding the party after work hours, so people who don't celebrate aren't left at their desks while everyone else is at the party. It also notes that some teams may prefer a party after the holidays, when people have fewer obligations.

For a full setup guide for in-person, hybrid and fully remote teams, see our office holiday party games page. For icebreakers you can use all year, start with our guide to icebreaker games.

Sources

Inclusion and scheduling guidance comes from the Society for Human Resource Management's article Making All Employees Feel Included During the Holidays. Board details describe our own Office Icebreaker Trivia board.

Office Christmas party games FAQ

What are some fun games to play at an office Christmas party?

Team trivia on a big screen, a "guess which coworker said it" game, guess the holiday song, guess the price and 60-second challenges are reliable picks. They're quick to explain, work for mixed groups, and none of them involve drinking or sharing anything too personal.

What are good Christmas party games for large groups?

Games played in teams scale best: big-screen trivia, guess the price, people bingo and a paper snowball fight all work for 50 to 100 people. Split the room into teams of 4 to 10 so everyone has a role.

What holiday party games work on Zoom or Teams?

Trivia where players buzz in from their phones, desk scavenger hunts, emoji puzzles in the chat, two truths and a lie, and team awards all work well on video. Keep rounds short and give remote players a way to answer without unmuting.

How do you make an office holiday party inclusive?

Call it a holiday or end-of-year party, mix winter and New Year's themes in with Christmas, and never make alcohol part of a game. Make every game optional, play in teams, and keep personal questions light.

How long should office party games last?

Plan about 30 to 45 minutes of games for a 90-minute to two-hour party. One main game of 20 to 30 minutes plus a short filler or two keeps the energy up without taking over the whole event.