Office Christmas party games that people actually join in with
Games for the work Christmas do, from the awkward first hour to after dinner, plus a Secret Santa that doesn't cause dread and a running order for the night.
The office Christmas party is an odd mix of people. There are the ones you sit next to every day, the ones from the third floor you only know from email, someone’s plus-one who knows nobody, and the boss, who everyone is slightly watching. For the first hour most people stand near whoever they came with and talk about the traffic.
A good game fixes that hour. A bad one makes it worse. This post is about picking the right ones, plus Secret Santa, remote colleagues and a running order you can steal. If you’re after something for a normal Friday afternoon rather than the big night, see games to play with coworkers.
Why a work party is different
The same game can go brilliantly with friends and fall flat at work. Three reasons.
Rank is in the room. Nobody wants to look stupid in front of their manager, and managers don’t want to look stupid in front of their team either. Games where one person stands up and performs alone are a risk. Games where everyone answers at once, or in teams, are much safer.
Not everyone knows each other. A game built on inside jokes leaves half the room out. At a work party you want games where knowing people helps but isn’t required.
There’s drink, and there are people who don’t drink. Keep the rules short enough to explain to someone holding a glass, and never make drinking part of the game. A company event isn’t the place for it, and the people on lemonade notice.
Before the night
Most of the work happens beforehand, and none of it takes long.
- Give one person the job. Not the most senior person in the room. Someone who’s happy to stand up, say “right, quick game” and get it going. If that’s you, you’re reading the right post.
- Pick two or three games, not ten. A party has room for maybe three short game slots before people want to eat, talk or dance. Have one spare in case something doesn’t land.
- Check the venue. A private room in a restaurant, the office kitchen and a corner of a loud bar all need different games. Find out whether there’s a screen you can use and whether the Wi-Fi works before you build the plan around phones.
- Keep it optional. Say so out loud. People join more readily when they know they don’t have to.
Secret Santa without the dread
Secret Santa is the one game almost every office plays, and it goes wrong in the same few ways every year. Some things that help:
- Draw names two weeks before. Not the Friday before the party, when everyone is panic-buying at lunchtime.
- Set a budget and mean it. £10 or £15 is common. Anything higher puts pressure on the people who earn least. Say clearly whether the budget is “around” or “no more than”.
- Ask for one hint each. A single line on a shared sheet: “I like tea, crime novels and anything orange.” It turns a guessing game into a gift someone will actually use.
- Go easy on joke presents. A joke that’s funny between two friends can land very differently in front of thirty colleagues. Nothing about anyone’s body, age, love life or drinking.
- Check nobody’s been missed. The new starter, the part-timer who’s never in on Fridays, the person on parental leave who’s coming just for the party.
You can also turn the reveal into a game. Before anyone says who bought what, everyone writes down who they think their Santa was. You’ll find out who’s been dropping hints and who has a terrible poker face.
The swap version
If your office likes a bit of chaos, try a swap instead of names in a hat. Everyone brings one wrapped present within the budget. Draw numbers. Number one opens a present from the pile. Number two can either open a new one or steal number one’s. Anyone who has their present stolen picks again, from the pile or by stealing. A present can only be stolen three times, then it’s safe. The last person to go gets the best choice of all, which makes the low numbers complain loudly, and that’s half the fun.
The first hour
People arrive in dribs and drabs, coats still on, nobody quite sure where to stand. You want something people can drop into and out of without stopping the room.
The baby photo wall. Collect a baby or school photo from everyone who wants to take part a week before, print them, number them and stick them on a wall. People write down their guesses as they arrive, and you read out the answers later in the night. It costs nothing and gets people from different teams talking straight away. Ask first, though. Not everyone wants their 1990s haircut on display.
A guessing game on the phones. Once enough people are in, open a game of Closest Wins. Everyone answers the same number question at once and the closest guess wins the round. It takes up to 20 players, it’s over in ten minutes and nobody needs to be good at quizzes. The new graduate has as much chance as the finance director, which is exactly what you want in that first hour.
Price Check works the same way with real product prices. Play it right after the Secret Santa names have gone out and someone will always say “I’m spending fifteen quid, not that”.
Joining is easy: one person opens a room on play.guezzer.com, puts the QR code on a screen or reads out the four-letter code, and everyone else joins in their phone’s browser. Nothing to install on anyone’s phone.
At the table
Between courses you’ve got ten or fifteen minutes where people are sitting down and a bit more relaxed. This is the best moment for the game that gets them talking.
- Tier List: everyone secretly ranks the same category from best to worst, then the results come up. Do Christmas dinner and watch two colleagues who’ve never disagreed about anything fall out over Brussels sprouts. Christmas films work too. Someone will put Love Actually at the bottom and have to defend it.
- Faker: everyone gets the same secret word except one person, who has to bluff. After the main course, with a glass of wine in, it gets very funny very fast. Up to 12 players, so a long table can play together.
- Wavelength: quieter, good for a restaurant where you can’t shout. One person gives a short clue to a spot on a scale and everyone turns their own dial. It’s a surprisingly good way to find out how your colleagues think.
Cracker jokes, backwards. Free and it needs nothing but the crackers on the table. When people pull them, they read out only the first half of the joke. The table has to guess the punchline. Whoever gets closest keeps the paper hat on for the rest of the night.
After dinner
People are full, some are a few drinks in, the music is getting louder. Shorter and louder games now, and stop before anyone gets bored.
Doodle Gallery is the one that gets the biggest laughs at this stage. Everyone draws the same prompt on their phone, the drawings go up anonymously and the room votes for a favourite. The serious people turn out to be the worst artists, and the anonymous gallery lets them try anyway.
This is also the moment to read out the baby photo answers and do the Secret Santa reveal, if you haven’t yet.
When there are more than 20 of you
Bigger parties need a slightly different approach.
- Play in teams. Put one phone on each table and let the table answer together. Tables arguing over a guess are louder and more fun than forty people on forty phones.
- Have a table quiz. Four short rounds: the year in the news, Christmas songs, guess the colleague from a fun fact, and a picture round. Each table hands in an answer sheet. Someone who isn’t playing does the marking.
- Keep it short. With a big crowd, two games is plenty. The rest of the evening is for talking.
Remote and hybrid teams
If half the team is in another city or another country, they can still be part of it.
- Send Secret Santa early. Post takes longer in December. A gift card is fine if the budget’s the same for everyone.
- One video call, one game room. Put the call on a screen at the party and the people at home join the same game from their phones. There’s more on this in games to play on a video call.
- How Well Do You Know Me? suits teams that mostly know each other through a screen. It has a question pack for coworkers, and one person in the hot seat answers while everyone else guesses. You’ll learn more about your colleagues in twenty minutes than in a year of stand-ups.
- Mind the time zones. A 7pm party in London is lunchtime in New York and the middle of the night in Singapore. Run a short version earlier in the day for whoever can’t make the evening.
What to leave out
- Drinking games. Not at a work event. Ever.
- Forfeits and dares. “Loser does a dance” is fine with friends. With your manager watching, it’s a reason not to play.
- Questions about money, politics, religion or anyone’s love life. That includes “who here fancies who” questions, however harmless they seem at the time.
- Solo performances. Karaoke is great for people who choose it. Don’t pick people out.
- Assuming everyone celebrates Christmas. The games themselves don’t need to be about Christmas. “End of year” works just as well for most of them.
- Running too long. Stop while people are still laughing. They’ll ask for another round, and that’s a much better ending than the game fizzling out.
A running order you can borrow
For a party of around 25 people in a restaurant, starting at 6.30:
- 6.30, arrivals. Baby photo wall up, guess sheets and pens next to it.
- 7.00, once most people are in. One quick round of Closest Wins for the whole room. Ten minutes.
- 7.30, dinner. Between starters and mains, one round of Tier List: Christmas dinner, best to worst. Crackers come out with dessert.
- 8.45, after dessert. Secret Santa reveal, with the guessing first. Then the baby photo answers.
- 9.15. Doodle Gallery if the room’s in the mood. If not, skip it and turn the music up.
Two or three of those will go well and one won’t. That’s normal. Drop the one that doesn’t and move on.
Free or Pass?
Every game on Guezzer is free to play. In free rooms the games are shorter: rounds and timers stay at their defaults, which is usually right for a party anyway. If you’re planning a longer session, the person who opens the room can get a Party Pass. It’s a one-off payment, not a subscription, and lasts 24 hours. Everyone in that room then plays without ads and with every setting open, and nobody else has to buy anything. The details are on the Guezzer Pass page.
The morning after
By January nobody will remember who won the quiz. They’ll remember that the head of IT drew a reindeer that looked exactly like a dog, that the quietest person in accounts turned out to be a brilliant faker, and that someone was genuinely upset about the sprouts. That’s the bit worth organising for.
