Five Holiday Games You Can Play from Anywhere

There are plenty of reasons why playing games during the holidays can bring a family together while they’re all in the same place. If you’re not together this season, though, it might be a good idea to look into some ideas for playing games with friends and family remotely, over Zoom or another service. Here are five great ideas for holiday games you can play remotely this holiday season.

This one is a great energy lifter – one person puts together a list and times everyone in the Zoom room to find the things on the list. Don’t make the list too long, of course, but do fill it with fun ideas. It can be simple stuff like candy canes, or complicated stuff you know Uncle Ron has in the shed, so it’ll take him a while. You can also take turns assigning scavenger hunt lists to the group, or assign a different – perhaps random – thing for each person in the room. You can time them or judge them on their creativity when they return.

The holiday version of never have I ever is a really fun way to get to know people you might think you know really well. The game is simple: everyone holds up ten fingers. One person raises a hand and says “never have I ever,” and fills in the blank with something they have never done. Everyone who has done that thing lowers a finger, and so on. The first person to go out – all fingers down – wins. If there’s a tie, you simply start over with the people who have tied.

Would you rather is a fun game of imagination. One person in the room asks a person “would you rather,” and gives them two difficult options. For instance, “Would you rather have Santa’s power of flight for a day, or a million dollars for only twenty minutes?” The person can ask questions to make sure there aren’t any trick questions. There are no real winners, just fun ways to learn about people.

Just like the old game show The Newlywed Game, you have a host and you have pairs of people – usually couples. You send one member of the couple out of the room (works fine if they live together – if it’s two separate folks on Zoom, you can have them take their headphones off) while the other answers some simple questions about them, like “What would they say is the first place you became friends?” After all the questions are answered, bring in the other party and compare their answers to the others. The winners are the pair with the most similar answers.

Simple games make for great holiday traditions, and tic-tac-toe is no exception. Playing it like Hollywood Squares is very easy, too, though you need at least twelve people – one host, two contestants, and nine smart-alecks to provide answers to the questions that the guests guess if they are correct or not. The Zoom host can organize the windows so everyone knows who the center square is.