Pin The Beard On Santa Game

When it comes to silly party games, it seems unfair that birthdays get all the attention and Christmas none. It's time to bring back some silly party games for Christmas, and "Pin the beard on Santa" is as good a place to start as any.

To begin this game, you need a cardboard cutout of Santa. This can be purchased at some party stores, or even little gift shops. It doesn't have to be large, but it should be a big face of Santa. You can also find these at educational supply stores, or teacher supply stores, in the section of other cardboard decoration items that teachers put on classroom walls.

Once you get Santa's face home, cut off his beard. That's right, cut if clean off. There's no point in pinning Santa's beard on him if it's already there, right? The beard you sliced off can either be thrown away or keep it to tape back up later, if you want to use Santa's face for another game or as decoration.

Now, you can create several beards out of different items. It's easy to take a piece of thick cardstock and cut the beard out of that, or you can use foam with adhesive backing. You can simply peel the backing off right before it's used. You could also make the beard out of crumpled white paper, simply computer paper or the like. If you want to get a bit more elaborate, create Santa's beard out of cotton balls or a large piece of cotton pulled and shaped into the semblance of a beard.

If you have 5 people playing this game, you'll need 5 beards. 10 people? 10 beards. You get the idea.

You play "pin the beard on Santa' exactly as you play "pin the tale on the donkey" and similar games. Spin the person around, make sure they are blindfolded and then have them try to replace Santa's lost beard. Self-adhesive foam works well because once they place it on the picture of Santa, it's not going to move, so they can't change their blindfolded mind and change the position once they pick a position. It's there for the duration.

No, you can add several variations to this game. For example, you can buy a full-size cardboard Santa (again, the party stores often have these, or school supply stores, or you can make one of your own without much effort). You might have people pin the boots on Santa, pin the hat on Santa, or pin a red button nose on Santa.

One fun (adult) version of this game is to pin the chest hair on Santa. Create a fun cardboard Santa with his suit unbuttoned. It's a big macho for Santa, but also a bit fun. Then fashion "chest hair" out of yarn, threads or fake fur. Attach some sort of adhesive to the back (foam stickers work, or heavy-duty double-stick tape) and have people try and pin the chest hair on Santa the same way they attached his beard or might attach his boots.

Any good game offers a prize for the winner, and this one is no exception. You could always offer Santa to the winning 'pinner" or you could have something more elaborate like a Santa goodie bag, filled with Santa pencils, Santa erasers, a Santa coffee mug, and Santa-themed candy.

Office Activities Valentines Day

Working might not seem like all fun and games, but sometimes you have to be silly and make work fun. Valentine's Day is a time to do just that. There are many activities you can incorporate into the work world. If your office is particularly close-knit, that opens the door to even more activities.

Start with the basics. Valentine's Day is all about the chocolate. Buy a big glass jar with a lid and make clear this chocolate is not for eating (a big sign on the front might help make this clear). Have everyone guess how many items are in the jar. You can fill it with just about anything, but Hershey's Kisses seem to make the most sense. You can fill with a mix of Kisses (hugs, regular, etc) or with just the classic chocolate kiss. In any event, have people guess how many kisses are in the jar. Their guesses should be written on a slip of paper and put into a box near the jar. The winner gets the jar of kisses on Valentine's Day. If your office is a bit more generous, a small dinner gift certificate could accompany the jar.

Another fun idea is V-day bingo. Create Bingo cards with various Valentine's Day pictures on them. There might a heart, a cupid, a couple kissing, and so on. These are clip art pieces that can easily be printed off the computer. Each day, someone will call out a square. It might be "HEART!" or "KISSING!" and everyone marks their bingo card. Start the game perhaps 3 weeks or so before Valentine's Day so someone has a chance to win before Valentine's Day. This is something that will take literally 30 seconds a day but will be fun and is sure to create some silly tension. The winner gets a prize. Perhaps free lunch in the company lunchroom, or a kiss from the boss, or something else silly.

If you have a few cooks in your office, you can suggest a "heart a day". Each day, someone must bring in something shaped like a heart, a food item, that is.  One day it could be cookies, and another pancakes. A truly original thinker might figure out how to bring a heart-shaped lasagna or something else. Perhaps little finger sandwiches cut into heart shapes. To make this extra entertaining and challenging, you could require that the foods actually be good for your heart (therefore, cookies might be out, but heart-shaped chocolates? In.).

Often officemates become more like family. Why not use the holiday of love to share your memories of your own loves? Have everyone write a quick story of how they met their wife or husband and put it in a jar. They shouldn't include names and shouldn't identify their spouse either. One day at lunch, when everyone is sitting together (this could be at a Valentine's Day lunch with your homemade goodies), read the stories and have everyone try to guess which one belongs to which office friend. Some of the stories might make you think it actually happened to someone else. Some of the stories are surprising and sometimes even funny,

Since email is often the communication of choice in offices, have some fun with a Valentine's Day email quiz. You can ask historical questions about the holiday or questions about co-workers. Some questions might look like this:

1. Who married their spouse in Yosemite National Park?
2. What does the word Valentine mean?
3. Which of the following animals mate for life? (You'll want to provide multiple choice answers for this one, of course.)

Fun Office Gift Exchange Games

There are dozens of fun office gift exchange games people can play during the Christmas season. Officemates might have a "secret Santa" gift exchange or a popular "white elephant" gift exchange. All are popular and always fun, provided the rules are clear and everyone understands them.

One of the most popular office games involving Christmas gifts is the "white elephant" gift exchange. The rules can vary depending on the office and participants, but generally it works something like this. Each person participating purchases a gift not to exceed a certain dollar amount (determined in advance and might range from $5 to $20, again depending on the group). The object here is a fun gift, so anything particularly practical is not welcome. You're looking for unusual and interesting, perhaps funny, and something other people will want.

Everyone who's participating in the exchange gets a number (the number should be the same as the number of presents). The numbers should be they drawn out of a hat or something else (perhaps a Santa hat, in recognition of the season?). So, the person who draws number "1" goes first and picks a present. They open it and keep it. The second person can either pick a different present or they can "steal" the first present. They can't open a present until they are sure they are keeping their choice and not picking the first gift. This continues until everyone has a present. Any present that's been opened can be subject to stealing, but a gift can only be stolen three times.

At the end of the game, the person who was the first to open a present can steal a gift if they choose, since they didn't have an opportunity earlier.

In this game there's always one gift that everyone wants and will steal over and over again. What makes it fun is trying to figure out who is going to get the most coveted gift. In some cases, people can end up with the gift they brought.

Originally the "white elephant" gift exchange was a way for people to "regift" or give someone a gift they themselves received and don't want. For a fun twist, you could ask people to bring something from their home like that, or you can require they purchase something (with the aforementioned limit on spending).

There are many varieties of the Secret Santa game, which is so popular in offices, but one option that's fun involves putting a dollar limit on the purchase and having participants actually make "Santa lists". Here's how it works: Those participating create a little list for "Santa". There should also be a dollar limit placed on this gift exchange, so if that is $10, then people should only list items on their Santa list that can be purchased for $10 or less.

Everyone who is participating draws a list out of a hat, or some other object, and sets about shopping for that person. They know who they are shopping for, but the recipient doesn't. On exchange day, the Secret Santas must deliver the gifts to their officemates' desks without being seen. Those participating can decide if they want people to sign the cards attached to the gifts, or if the secret should stay a secret. If they choose the latter, gift giving can be interesting, since it's anonymous, but many people choose to have cards signed so in the end, people who to thank for their gifts.

Fun Office Christmas Activities

Just because you're stuck in an office all day doesn't mean Christmas fun can't extend to your workplace. Depending on the environment at your work, it's definitely possible to mix holiday fun with work.

One obvious choice for some fun at the office during the holidays is to have a party. You could have several, in fact. How about a cookie exchange party? Plan to do this at lunchtime one day, and during that block of time, everyone brings several dozen cookies they have made. You have to set a particular number of cookies everyone brings. Because once everyone has an empty plate, they go around the table picking up cookies that look good to them and place them on their empty paper plate. If everyone brought 3 dozen cookies, say, then everyone gets to take home 3 dozen cookies. This is not a particularly unique idea, but one that brings a bit of fun into the workplace.

Keeping in mind whether or not the public visits your workplace, you might choose to decorate. Why not have a Christmas tree decorating event? Everyone brings 6 ornaments and as a group activity, everyone decorates the tree. This is a good way to build team spirit and decorate your workplace at the same time.

Don't forget to institute a "secret Santa" event at work, where you secretly buy gifts for someone and have some type of gift exchange. But what about a "Santa's helper" activity? Someone in the group has to begin this on the sly. Essentially, this first person (the only one in the know about how the whole thing began) puts together a little gift. Ideally, it's a basket with a few gift items in it. They might be decorative items, or baked goods or even bath items. Attach a card saying that "Santa's helper" dropped by and brought these items. Now the person who received the "helper's" gift must put together a little something for someone else and - again on the sly - deliver it to the next person. It continues until everyone has received a visit from "Santa's helper".

Nothing brings people together like a group activity designed to help others. What if your officemates came up with an activity designed to help people less fortunate at the holidays? You might adopt a local family and everyone in the office purchases items for that family. You might choose to purchase Christmas trees for needy families. If the public visits your office often, you might even begin a "sharing" tree and people can bring items to put under the tree for needy families or children. As a group activity, the office workers can then deliver these items to the needy.

The particularly festive office might want to have someone come in and do a cooking demonstration. If there are enough people interested, you can hire a cook or baker to come into your office on your lunch hour and do a demonstration or class. Say you want to bake but don't know what to bake this year. A baker can come in and demonstrate cookies or other goodies you might not have thought to make. Or someone can come in with ideas and samples for the perfect Christmas meal. These ideas are perfect for the environment where people work many hours and are quite busy but still want to do their regular cooking and baking each year.

Family Thanksgiving Activities

If you're hosting a family thanksgiving, you want to create a fun family environment that helps children understand the importance of thankfulness and reminds the adults of  this as well.

Since Thanksgiving comes just before what many refer to as the "greedy" season, activities designed to remind people of the bounty in their lives are useful. For example, you might help children understand that while they don't have everything they want, they do have everything they need.

How do you do this? Several ways. One is to help children create a cornucopia, which will sit on the Thanksgiving table. There are a variety of ways to do this. You can make a papier-mâché cornucopia using a balloon as the base to help you get the shape started. You can simply take large piece of poster board and shape them into a cone and fill those with whatever you like. As an extra activity, you can have the children decorate the cornucopia before it gets filled.

Since the idea of the cornucopia is to celebrate a bounty and appreciate that bounty, you can fill it as is traditionally done with squash, corn and the like. You might also ask each member of the family to bring something that represents their personal bounty in life. A new mom might bring a baby blanket to put in the cornucopia while a newly retired grandpa might add a picture of his family, since that's what's most important to him. You can discuss the items in the cornucopia basket at the dinner table while enjoying your Thanksgiving feast.

Another family activity that kids like is the thankfulness jar. When each person arrives at dinner, they place a note with something they are thankful for in the jar. Ideally, each person will add more than one item to the jar. At dinner, someone (ideally, the matriarch of patriarch of the family) reads the notes. Everyone tries to figure out who wrote which note. The items can range from the serious (someone who struggled with an illness in the previous year might be thankful for life, quite simply) to the silly (the new mom might be thankful there's a Starbucks within 5 minutes of her home). Kids enjoy adding their own touches to the thankfulness jar and their responses are often a surprise to the adult family members.

Some families have several tables set about at Thanksgiving. Many people buy professional floral arrangements to decorate the tables. You can make a game out of it to figure out who's going to get to bring home the table arrangement to their home. You can do the old wedding thing and simply put a number on the bottom of the centerpiece and have someone's chair match that number or you can make a game and perhaps create a trivia game out of Thanksgiving facts. For example, questions might look like this:
*How many turkeys are cooked on Thanksgiving throughout the US?
*Why are turkeys called turkeys?
*Which president set aside the last Thursday in November as Thanksgiving?

Be sure you research and know the answers and then quiz everyone. This is a great way to pass the time while everyone is waiting for the feast to be ready. Just tell the winners they can't take the centerpieces until dinner is over!
You can have a similar game before dessert. Create a family trivia game and quiz family members before dessert. Only the people who get the answers right get to have their dessert. Everyone else has to keep trying until they get their trivia question right. Questions can range from the silly to the sublime. They might look something like this:
*Who got popcorn stuck in her braces at 12?
*Which man here wore boots with big holes in them until he was 20 and could buy his own?
*Whose grandparents immigrated to the US from Ireland?
*Which boy here got suspended from school for riding his bike into the classroom?