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As a child, you frame Christmas as a time for gifts, cookies, and quality time with family. However, as soon as you get old enough to taste the spiked version of your family’s eggnog, Christmas takes on a new meaning, and you add one more activity to your list of Christmas favorites: drinking.
For many adults, socializing over drinks is one of the best parts about Christmas. What better way to socialize and make drinking even more fun than to play Christmas drinking games? Whether you go to a friend’s Christmas party or are celebrating with your family on Christmas Day, there are several games you can play that will get you in the holiday spirit … and maybe a little tipsy.
Keep reading to discover the best Christmas drinking games that you have to try for your next holiday gathering.
The Most Entertaining Christmas Drinking Games for Adults
You can make almost any activity into a drinking game if you put your mind to it, but you want to make sure the game is fun for everyone and actually gets people drinking, although not too quickly.
To give you some ideas, here are the top Christmas drinking games that will have you and your friends tipsy in no time.
The Christmas Alphabet Game
This name may go by many names, but chances are you’ve played a variation of the alphabet game since childhood with several different categories and themes. Well, as you may have guessed, this version of the game is Christmas-themed.
The game is simple. Start with the first letter of the alphabet and everyone has to say something Christmas-related that starts with the letter they land on. For example, the first person who gets “A” could say “angel” or “advent.” You’re welcome for the jump start. The catch is that the person’s response has to be immediate. Once someone hesitates or can’t figure out a word, they drink.
If you want to make this game even more difficult, you can narrow it down to Christmas sub-themes, such as Christmas movies or Christmas food. Beware, if it’s too narrow, everyone may get drunk very quickly!
Hallmark Christmas Movie Drinking Game
Hallmark movies have become a staple of the Christmas season, both ironically and unironically. No one can say they’re high-quality movies, but sometimes they’re so bad they’re good, and they always express a feel-good charm by the end. Whether you love them or hate them, make your movie marathon more interesting with the Hallmark Christmas Movie Drinking Game from Country Living.
The rules of the game are explained in the graphic above, but you essentially drink whenever a specific thing is said or done in a movie, with some actions resulting in you finishing your drink or taking a shot. We can use this for almost any Hallmark movie, which is what makes it especially fun.
Here’s a heads up: it snows in basically every Hallmark movie, so always expect to finish your drink!
Fun Fact: I am OBSESSED with Hallmark Christmas movies (and now Lifetime ones too). They aren’t super high quality, but the good juju I feel just watching them truly makes my heart happy. And now, probably tipsy too.
Christmas Bingo
One of the best things about Bingo is that everyone knows how to play it, and if there is ever someone who doesn’t, it’s very easy to learn. What’s more is that there are several themed versions of Bingo that are suitable for every occasion. Try playing this Christmas version of Bingo and turn it into a Christmas drinking game.
There are several ways you can turn this game into one of the booziest Christmas drinking games. If you play several rounds, you can have all the losers at the end of each round take a drink. But to make it even more of a drinking experience, choose half of the symbols as drinking symbols. Whenever one of them is called out, everyone takes a drink. Hopefully everyone is able to keep up, and of course, “Free” means a free drink.
Never Have I Ever … On Christmas
Next, we have everyone’s (well not me LOL) favorite party game: Never Have I Ever.
Also called Never Have I Evergreen, this is a Christmas take on a classic, and a great way to get to know your guests at your next Christmas gathering. But be prepared for surprises!
In the original game, everyone takes turns saying something they have never done, phrasing it as “Never have I ever.” Those who have done whatever is said must take a drink and often must answer some follow-up questions from the other curious players.
With this Christmas-themed version, everyone goes around saying something they’ve never done either on Christmas Day or during the holiday season. Here are some examples:
- Never have I ever had fruitcake
- Never have I ever gotten an Easy Bake Oven on Christmas
Of course, the questions can be a little more scandalous than this – it’s all up to you and your friends. Even though this version is limited to Christmas, you might be surprised by some peoples’ responses!
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reinbeer Pong
Here’s another Christmas take on a common drinking game, but this version of beer pong isn’t as simple as using a red ball for Rudolph’s nose.
This Christmas drinking game starts off like normal beer pong, with two teams and a dozen cups of beer, or the Christmas spirit of your choice, in front of them. Each team takes turns throwing a ball into the other team’s cup, and every time they succeed, the other team must drink the contents of the cup.
However, in this Christmas-themed version, everyone on each team must wear reindeer antlers. The defending team must use their antlers to stop the balls from getting in the cup. And of course, it makes this drinking game a little more challenging.
Christmas Sing-a-long
You can probably recognize a Christmas song as soon as you hear it. And you might feel like you hear it so often that you know the song like the back of your hand. But do you ACTUALLY know the lyrics to your favorite Christmas song?
Your Christmas lyric knowledge will be put to the test with this Christmas drinking game. All you’ll need is a group of friends who are comfortable singing along with each other, and drinks.
Similar to the alphabet game, everyone goes around finishing the lyrics to a Christmas song of your choosing. As soon as someone forgets the lyrics, they take a drink. This game will make you realize you might not actually know your favorite Christmas song’s lyrics as well as you thought!
Big Dot of Happiness Drink If Game
Most Christmas drinking games don’t require much more than a group of friends and some liquor. But if you want to switch it up, try this Big Dot of Happiness Drink If Game.
A little more innocent than Never Have I Ever, in this drinking game you designate someone as the card keeper. Each card contains the words “Drink If…” and a phrase. From there, you just follow instructions. If someone in the group has done whatever the card says, they drink. There are 24 cards in this deck, which can make for a lot of drinks if you have someone very experienced playing.
Elf Drinking Game
Last on our list of the best Christmas drinking games is the Elf Drinking Game.
Chances are you’re going to watch Elf at least once this holiday season, so make sure you play the Elf Drinking Game from Delish at least one of those times.
Similar to the Hallmark drinking game, the graphic above designates certain phrases and actions from the beloved Will Ferrell movie. And with each phrase or action, you take a sipsy. If you’ve watched the movie, you’ll notice that many of these happen quite often, such as “Papa Elf Narrates the Story” or “Anyone Sings,” so be warned you might not make it through the entire movie!
We did not make it through the whole movie in case you were wondering.
Final Thoughts
I love Christmas drinking games, especially on nights where you don’t have the kiddos. It’s such a great way to socialize while getting into the holiday spirit. Sometimes, we even even make a whole day of it. We will do a baking day of Christmas cookies and then have an adult Christmas games night. There are several games that you can play no matter what activity you enjoy or what pace you want to drink.
Okay, what am I missing? What games have you turned into a Christmas drinking game? Share in the comments below!
Note: Some links in this post are affiliate links, and we will be compensated when you make a purchase by clicking through our links. Thank you. Read our disclosure + terms here.
