Christmas Party Games for Work: 12 Games for the Office and the Video Call

Before You Pick a Game

A work party is not a friends' party with a different address. The people in the room did not choose each other, some report to others, and a few would rather be elsewhere. Four rules shaped every entry on this list.

• Nothing depends on a belief or a tradition. The party may be called a Christmas party, but the games are about the year, the office and the people, not about any holiday. Anyone can play them on day one at a new job.
• No drinking as a mechanic. Nobody drinks to play, nobody drinks as a penalty. Whatever is in people's glasses stays out of the rules.
• Nobody is exposed. No game asks a colleague to reveal something personal, act out something undignified, or be judged as a person. Teams are judged on what they built, wrote or guessed.
• Everyone plays from wherever they are. Each game has an in-person rule and a video-call rule, and both are complete. If your party is hybrid, run the video-call rule for everyone so the room and the screen play the same game.

One more thing that helps: appoint a host who is not playing. The host keeps time, reads the rules aloud, holds the scores and settles disputes, and on a video call also runs the breakout rooms and the shared screen.

Warm-Ups for the First Ten Minutes

These two take almost no setup and get people talking before anything competitive starts. Pick one.

1. Common Ground. Split into teams of four or five. Each team has three minutes to find three things every member has in common that have nothing to do with work: a food everyone dislikes, a city everyone has visited, a skill everyone has tried and abandoned. Write each one on a sticky note. When time is up, teams read their notes aloud. A note scores one point, or two points if no other team wrote anything similar. The host rules on "similar".
Group: eight to thirty. Time: ten minutes. Materials: sticky notes and pens.
In person: teams gather at separate tables and stick their three notes on the wall for reading.
On a video call: the host sends teams to breakout rooms for three minutes, then brings everyone back; one person per team types the three items into the chat at the same moment, on the host's count, so nobody can copy.

2. Desk Safari. The host calls a category and everyone has thirty seconds to find a matching object within arm's reach and hold it up: something blue, something older than the company, something you have never actually used, something that should have been thrown away. First to hold up a valid object scores a point; ties go to whoever tells the better one-sentence story about the object. Play six to eight categories.
Group: five to forty. Time: ten minutes. Materials: none, only whatever is on desks.
In person: everyone stays at their own desk or table; the host stands where they can see all raised hands.
On a video call: players hold the object to the camera; the host uses the order in which objects appear on screen.

Team Rounds

The main course. Each of these takes a quarter of an hour or more and gives teams something to build, write or argue about. Two or three of them fill a party.

3. Office Trivia, Written by You. Nobody has to prepare questions in advance: the teams write them. Each team gets ten minutes to write five questions about the shared workplace, with the answer on the back of the card. Questions must be about places and things, never about people: the colour of the kitchen mugs, the number of floors, the names of the meeting rooms. Teams then swap question cards with the team to their left and answer. A correct answer scores a point for the answering team. A question that no team could answer scores a point against the team that wrote it, which keeps the questions fair.
Group: nine to thirty in teams of three to five. Time: twenty-five minutes. Materials: index cards or folded paper, pens.
In person: cards are physically passed to the left.
On a video call: each team sends its five questions to the host by private message; the host reads each team's questions aloud to the team on its left, and answers are typed into the chat by that team only.

4. The Wrong Manual. Each team picks a mundane office task from a list the host provides: making a cup of tea in the office kitchen, sending a calendar invite, refilling the printer, packing a laptop bag. The team writes instructions for that task in exactly five steps, as clearly as they can. Then the manual goes to another team, who must perform the task at a table, following the steps literally and only the steps, with whatever props are around. Any ambiguous step gets performed in the most unhelpful way the performers can justify. The writing team scores one point for every step that survived being followed literally. The performing team scores one point for every step they managed to twist. The host judges each step.
Group: eight to twenty-four in teams of four. Time: twenty minutes. Materials: paper, pens, ordinary desk objects as props.
In person: the performing team acts at a table in front of everyone; no one is required to leave their chair.
On a video call: the performing team picks one volunteer to act on camera with objects from home, while the rest of the team calls the moves; the volunteer is chosen by the team, never by the host.

5. Paper Bridge. Each team gets ten sheets of printer paper, one roll of tape and fifteen minutes to build a bridge between two chairs or boxes set a fixed distance apart, strong enough to hold a stapler in the middle for ten seconds. Every team gets the same gap and the same stapler. If more than one bridge holds, the host widens the gap by the width of one hand and tests again, until one bridge remains. If none holds, the bridge that came closest to the full gap wins.
Group: six to twenty in teams of three or four. Time: twenty-five minutes. Materials: printer paper, tape, one stapler, two supports.
In person: teams build on the floor or a large table; the host tests each bridge in front of everyone.
On a video call: each player builds solo at home with ten sheets and tape, and shows the bridge on camera holding any small heavy object from the same category, such as a stapler or a mug; the host measures the gap in the width of the builder's hand held up to the camera, and the widest gap that holds wins.

6. Pitch the Useless Product. The host holds a bag of ordinary office objects: a stapler, a sticky note pad, a lanyard, a phone charger, a plant pot. Each team draws two objects without looking and gets five minutes to invent a product that combines them and prepare a ninety-second pitch. The pitch must have a name, a target customer and a slogan. Each team picks its own presenter. After all pitches, everyone votes for a favourite by holding up a sticky note; you may not vote for your own team. Most votes wins.
Group: eight to thirty in teams of four or five. Time: twenty-five minutes. Materials: a bag of office objects, paper, sticky notes.
In person: presenters stand at the front, or stay seated if they prefer; the objects are the only props.
On a video call: the host names two objects per team from a list, teams prepare in breakout rooms, and the presenter pitches with the camera on; voting is a single word typed into the chat on the host's count.

7. The Shortest Meeting. Each team is given a deliberately trivial question, the sort nobody should ever meet about: which office plant deserves a promotion, whether the stapler or the tape dispenser matters more. The team has ninety seconds to hold a meeting and produce a decision with exactly three supporting points, delivered by one speaker in under thirty seconds. The host scores each summary out of five for clarity and out of five for laughs, and announces both. Highest total wins; teams that run over ninety seconds forfeit the round.
Group: six to twenty-four in teams of three to five. Time: fifteen minutes for four questions. Materials: a timer and a list of questions.
In person: teams huddle at their tables; the host walks between them with the timer.
On a video call: ninety seconds in breakout rooms, then the host calls each team's speaker in turn; the timer is shown on the shared screen.

Games That Were Built for the Video Call

These three were designed for a screen first, and each has an in-person version that works just as well. If your party is entirely remote, start here.

8. Spot the Change. One player turns off their camera for thirty seconds. While it is off, the other players on the call each change one visible thing in their own frame: a picture moved, a lamp switched, a mug that was not there before, a jacket put on. The player turns the camera back on and has one minute to name as many changes as they can find. One point per correct change. Everyone takes a turn as the finder. Changes must be to objects and clothing, never to faces or expressions.
Group: four to twelve. Time: two minutes per finder. Materials: none.
In person: the finder steps out of the room, or turns to face the wall, while the others change three things on a shared table or on the wall; on return the finder has one minute to name them.
On a video call: as written above; the host confirms each change with the player who made it.

9. Caption This. The host prepares five or six photographs taken around the office before the party: the empty meeting room, a tangle of cables, the lonely last biscuit. The host shows one photo, everyone writes a caption in sixty seconds and sends it to the host privately. The host reads all captions aloud without saying who wrote them, and everyone votes for one caption that is not their own. The author of the winning caption scores a point and is revealed only if they wish to be. Photos must never show a colleague.
Group: five to forty. Time: three minutes per photo. Materials: the host's photos and a way to show them.
In person: photos are shown on the meeting-room screen; captions are written on sticky notes and handed to the host face down.
On a video call: the host shares the photo on screen; captions come in by private message; voting is by typing the number of the caption into the chat.

10. Paper Plane Distance. Everyone gets one sheet of printer paper and three minutes to fold a plane. Planes are thrown one at a time from a fixed line, and distance is measured in floor tiles or foot lengths, whichever the host declares. Longest throw wins; a second round can be scored on the straightest flight. Any fold is allowed, but the paper cannot be cut, weighted or taped.
Group: four to thirty. Time: fifteen minutes. Materials: printer paper.
In person: clear a corridor or the long side of the room; the host stands at the far end and calls the distance.
On a video call: each player angles the camera down their own hallway, throws, then walks the distance on camera counting foot lengths aloud. Players with less space are scored on flight time, counted aloud by the host.

Closing Rounds

The last ten minutes are for lowering the temperature, not raising it. Neither of these is scored.

11. Predictions Envelope. Everyone writes one prediction for the team's next year on a slip of paper: a project that will finish, a plant that will survive, a meeting that will finally get shorter. Predictions about the team are welcome, predictions about a named colleague are not. Slips go into an envelope the host seals and keeps. If the group agrees, the host reads them all aloud before sealing, and the room votes on the one most likely to come true. The envelope is opened at next year's party.
Group: any. Time: ten minutes. Materials: paper, pens, one envelope.
In person: slips are folded and dropped into the envelope as it passes around.
On a video call: predictions go to the host by private message; the host reads them aloud in shuffled order and keeps the file until next year.

12. Highlight Reel. Going around the room once, each person names one moment from the year in a single sentence, from work or not, as small as a good lunch. One rule: nobody may repeat a category already used, so once someone has named a trip, the next trip is out. Anyone may pass by saying "pass", no explanation needed. The host goes last.
Group: any, best under twenty-five. Time: ten minutes. Materials: none.
In person: go clockwise around the table.
On a video call: the host names the order in advance by reading the participant list, so nobody talks over anyone.

A Running Order That Fits an Hour

For a single hour and a mixed room, this order moves from small groups to whole-room games and ends without a winner.

1. Minutes 0 to 10: Common Ground, so people talk before they compete.
2. Minutes 10 to 35: one team round. Pitch the Useless Product if the room is lively, Paper Bridge if it is quieter and would rather build than talk.
3. Minutes 35 to 50: one screen-friendly game. Caption This works in any room and needs nothing from players except a pen.
4. Minutes 50 to 60: Highlight Reel or the Predictions Envelope, then stop while people still want more.

For a longer party, add a second team round and take a break between them. For a hybrid room, run every game by its video-call rule and keep the host on the call, because the people on the screen are the easiest to forget.

If the office already runs corporate events through the year, the same host, timer and scoreboard habits carry straight over. And if someone is taking pictures, a few basics from our photography tutorials make a meeting room look better than it deserves.