Office holiday party games

[sunshine girl]

Hi all,

My office is having a little holiday party this year and I'm supposed to help think of activities. It's a low-key group of about 30 people of various ages - there will be no drunken Twister or post-it notes on foreheads! We're renting bar space to eat & relax. Anyone have any ideas??

For reference, last year they went around and took photos of random items on people's desks, and everyone had to guess which person's desk the photos came from (everyone received a handout at the party featuring the photos & space to write their guesses). That was apparently a big hit. I need to think of something similar but not exactly the same. Something people can do on their own time while mingling without requiring full attention or party stoppage!!

My 2 big ideas so far:

Celebrity look-a-like: A staff picture would be paired with three celebrity pictures and everyone got to vote on which of those 3 celebrities the staff member looked like the most. This could be fun but in order to avoid being inadvertently offensive, we'd have to use only attractive celebrities!

Baby Pictures: Everyone gives me a personal baby photo (of themselves) prior to the event, and I prepare a document with all the photos numbered. Guests try to guess which baby photo corresponds with which staffer.

Any more ideas would be great! It's hard to think of this stuff.

 

[preb]

I like the baby picture idea!

Another thing that we've done is put a sticker on each person's back identifying them as something holiday related. They then have to ask yes/no questions to figure out what they are, but they can only ask each person at the party one question. This forces people to mingle. When we did it the company was using drink coupons to control the alcohol intake, so everyone got one drink when they arrived, we put the sticker on their back, and they could earn another drink coupon by figuring out who or what they were.

Some ideas are Santa, Mrs Clause, Dasher, Dancer, Vixen, Little Drummer Boy, a lump of coal, jingle bells, mistletoe...you get the idea.

Did that make sense? It sounds much more complicated then it is!

 

[sunshine girl]

That idea makes sense! Thank you! It's a fantastic idea, though I'm not sure I can get people to put stickers on their backs. It's a tough crowd!!

I'm keeping it on my list though.

 

[LindaG4458]

Following is the best Christmas office game I've ever played. A coworker brought it to our office and everyone really enjoyed it. I call it Name That Christmas Song.

Make a list of Christmas song titles. From that list create another of the first lines of each song, then a third list of the inital letters of the words in the first line.

Silent Night----Silent night, holy night----SNHN

Pass out the list of initials. The winner is the first person who can name all the songs.

Put on a couple of really difficult ones. This was the hardest on our list:

WUNWTAIC----Way up north where the air is cold----Little St. Nick by the Beach Boys

It was lots of fun.

 

[browneyes106]

I like the baby pictures idea.

 

[PRINCESS VIJA]

Not sure if this would work for your party, but have everyone give you some sort of trivia about themselves and then party goers have to guess the person that matches the trivia

 

[sunshine girl]

Following is the best Christmas office game I've ever played. A coworker brought it to our office and everyone really enjoyed it. I call it Name That Christmas Song.

Make a list of Christmas song titles. From that list create another of the first lines of each song, then a third list of the inital letters of the words in the first line.

Silent Night----Silent night, holy night----SNHN

Pass out the list of initials. The winner is the first person who can name all the songs.

Put on a couple of really difficult ones. This was the hardest on our list:

WUNWTAIC----Way up north where the air is cold----Little St. Nick by the Beach Boys

It was lots of fun.

This is a good one!! I am tempted to get this going at my holiday festivities at home too... thanks!

 

[sunshine girl]

Not sure if this would work for your party, but have everyone give you some sort of trivia about themselves and then party goers have to guess the person that matches the trivia

This would totally work -thanks for the idea! People might be more comfortable giving personal trivia rather than personal photos (as in my ideas with the baby photos or celebrity photos)... this is great.

 

[Mish19]

Get popular product logos and have people guess what the product is.
Famous landmarks/skylines

This year I'm trying a new one - Take close-up pictures of day to day things and ask people to guess what it is.

One year we took pictures of co-workers eyes and we had to guess who the eyes belong to.

 

[sunshine girl]

Get popular product logos and have people guess what the product is.
Famous landmarks/skylines

This year I'm trying a new one - Take close-up pictures of day to day things and ask people to guess what it is.

One year we took pictures of co-workers eyes and we had to guess who the eyes belong to.

These are all good! I like the logo idea especially. Thanks!!

 

[almacdonald]

I've been suckered into planning our christmas party for 2 years in a row now. People seem to like the games that don't involve embarassing themselves (ie singing is not a good activity!) People also don't usually willingly participate in giving up personal information, baby pictures etc. - bribery helps! We did the baby photo game last year and it worked out great. We did a draw for a $50 gift card for all the people who brought in pictures. People also really liked trivia, it gives them a chance to show off!

 

[sunshine girl]

Yes I think bribery would help. People here don't seem to be big into party foolishness, but I don't know what will happen after a few drinks. It's my first holiday party at this office! Anything could happen!

As a side note: I previously worked at a big advertising firm in downtown Chicago and goodness, the debauchery at THOSE holiday parties!! I can't even get into it here. But it was fun!