Christmas Day Entertaining ideas? Anyone?

[door knob solitaire]

Hey anyone have any ideas for keeping Christmas Day guests entertained? We will have no computer or TV just music. Dinner served and of course dessert...then gift exchange. We usually gather around 2 or 3 eat about 4 or 5 and exchange about 7. Stay together until 10ish.

We have at our other family done that mean Santa thing...were you each bring an inexpensive gift...and you can take away someone''s gift and get they can take another...We discussed pictionary....Probably some Trivia...

This year we are all adult over 18...any ideas?

(Please help as Mr. DoorKnob want to do an indoor paint ball marathon!) We are redoing this house...soon...so everything will end up in a dumper...But come on...paint ball on Christmas? Hmmm, my mother in law is attending....hmmm.

DKS

 

[FireGoddess]

Our big Italian thing to do is to play Tombola, which is actually bingo. Everybody puts in a nickel or dime per bingo card they want, and then we split up the pile of money into 3 parts - small pile for 1 row, bigger pile for 2 rows, biggest pile for the whole card. It''s actually.....really fun. Maybe more fun when there''s kids, parents, and grandparents, but we used to love it.

I think board games are always fun - Taboo, Pictionary, Balderdash....etc.

 

[door knob solitaire]

Oh Mr DoorKnob will love the "kitty" pile. The family always says where there is a way he will always win. Good idea Fire Goddess!! Thanks.

 

[strmrdr]

worst joke contest:
something like this one:
https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/funny.37206/

 

[strmrdr]

love the paintball idea!

Nice way to practice home invader drills.

Set up 2 teams defenders and invaders and have at it.
Then switch sides.

 

[Mara]

For me the most fun times are when people play games together. Have you guys tried poker? My cousin graduated from college earlier this year and had a luncheon thing at a hotel and after lunch all the "kids" and some of the uncles played poker on 1-3 tables together. It was alot of fun, the uncles kind of oversaw everything since they had the most experience etc. We had never played before. Poker is HUGE right now too especially with the younger sets. Or other games like charade or card games usually are pretty fun. We visited Greg''s stepmom''s family in FL earlier this year and they are huge on various card games, originally from the midwest where Greg says the winters are so cold that everyone just stays in and plays cards...so we played all these fun card games with the family. They REALLY get into it too, pretty competitive and everyone is drinking the whole time of course!

I like your idea of the passing the gift, most of the time it''s done with white elephant gifts but it''s even better if the items are desirable. I would do it with small gifts that are above and beyond the ones you are giving each other, aka tell everyone to bring another gift ~under $10 and that will be what gets passed around. That way there''s no bitterness on what people end up with because it was small stuff to begin with.

 

[surfrgrl]

I agree with Fire Goddess''s bingo idea.

When we have big holidays at our house, the day before we go to the dollar store and buy several "prizes" like, a flashlight, a holiday CD, a photo frame, etc., etc. and wrap them up in fun paper. On the holiday, we have a bingo game after dinner and everyone plays from grandma/grandpa down to the littlest ones (I realize you have all adults but believe me the "prizes" keep everybody interested). When someone wins a game they get to choose their prize, and folks end up swapping prizes.

One year, grandpa (84) got a "Best of Heavy Metal" CD. Needless to say, he swapped it!

It''s a nice, fun, relaxing activity and it also gives me, the hostess, time to put away food and get things ready for dessert.

 

[eks6426]

If you have enough people, how about a euchre tournament? You need at least 8 couples. Play a game, then then the winners play the winners & so on. Eventually you get down to the "champion" game. To mix it up, you can have each person keep track of their own score and instead of having the winning team move on, you pick the 2 highest scorers from each table to move on..that way people get new partners. If you do the mix-up version, to determine the winner of the game you add the partners indivdual scores together so when the "team" gets to 10 the game is over--just keep track of who got what separately.

My family does this and it''s lots of fun. Perfect for a group of all adults. It can also be done with pinnacle, bridge etc.

 

[Erin]

At Thanksgiving we played that hand held pass around game "Catch Phrase." It''s fun because you can stop and start whenever you need to and unless you play exactly by the rules using points there is no end to the game and no winners or losers. Just fun.

A lot things that come out of my Grandmothers mouth aren''t meant to be funny but are.

Her clues were "Okay this man was important and he was Greek. No wait, I''m sorry, he was Jewish. Aaaaaaaaaaand he used to work alongside, oh what was his name, he was very important, too." BUZZ

We''re all laughing, ''Grandma what were you trying to get us to say?'' Well, Henry Kissinger of course.

 

[monarch64]

Oh yeah, I second the Catchphrase motion. Love me some Catchphrase. We gave it to my brother and SIL last year for Christmas...hopefully they will bring it along this year. It''s a fun, pretty simple game anyone can play, unless you are English-challenged. In friendly circles, we play men vs. women, and the guys always cheat and win (which unfortunately, is funny to us), but in family circles I think you could go couples, if everyone is a pair. As Starset Princess said, it is the way people describe what they want you to guess that makes it so funny!

My mother and I always stay up late and play this game she''s had since like, 40 years ago...it''s called, Facts in Five, anyone heard of it? It''s our mother/daughter, after everyone goes to bed, yearly tradition.

There is a new interactive game out called Scene It, my husband''s whole family played it on Thanksgiving Day. You form teams, use a gameboard and pieces, and watch clues relating to entertainment/t.v./movies on a DVD, and whoever guesses first gets to advance on the gameboard. Pretty fun, kept us occupied for 2 hours for $34.99.

 

[Angel7]

FireGoddes-I love Tombola. We play that all the time, while I''m eating my Toblerone!

These are my favorite games
-Scattergories
-Outburst (great with a big group because you can just yell out answers)
-Cranium is fun
-I second Mara''s suggestion with Poker
-Uno
-I saw that they have Win Lose or Draw at Kohl''s! You hook it up to your tv and draw on this pad at it comes out on the tv. Pretty cool!
-Ohh Battle of the Sexes is fun too! You get the guys vs the girls, gets very competitive!!

Now I want to play board games! Can I come over??

 

[FireGoddess]

Date: 12/16/2005 5:45:27 PM
Author: Angel7
FireGoddes-I love Tombola. We play that all the time, while I''m eating my Toblerone!

Me too...I''m usually stuffing my face with Baci. YUM YUM YUM!!!! And torrone....my dad brought some back from Italy and it''s all gone already...

...I meant to save some for Christmas, I really did!!!

 

[Angel7]

Date: 12/16/2005 7:58:34 PM
Author: FireGoddess
Me too...I''m usually stuffing my face with Baci. YUM YUM YUM!!!! And torrone....my dad brought some back from Italy and it''s all gone already...

...I meant to save some for Christmas, I really did!!!

Please, I bought one of those Ferrero Rocher xmas trees that is filled with the different brand of chocolates they offer and I have to pry myself away from it every night because it''s a gift for my aunt!! They''re calling my name!!
Bingo and chocolate, is there anything better?