Christmas is the season for get-togethers. It’s the best time to meet up with old friends, to hold a reunion, to celebrate with your office mates, or to just be with close family and friends. Christmas is a time for celebrating, and for the gracious host, it’s another opportunity to invite people over for dinner.
When hosting a Christmas dinner, it’s not only the menu or the decor that you need to pay attention to. You also want to make sure your guests have a great time. This can be somewhat difficult when you have guests who do not know each other well. In my experience, there is no better way to break the ice than by having dinner party games.
There are many dinner party games to choose from. You want to choose something that is appropriate for the company that you are having. You will also want a dinner party game that will get people mingling and interacting with each other. You don’t necessarily have to pick a unique dinner party game. Actually, the more familiar a game is, the less time you’ll spend explaining the mechanics. Make it your own by adding or changing a few elements of the game to make it match your theme, if you are having one.
Here are some of the best dinner party games that you can use to coax your guests out of their shells:
1. “Never Have I Ever”.
Prepare a deck of note cards with a “Never Have I Ever” on each one. Choose fun “Never Have I Evers”, for example, “Never have I ever gotten a tattoo” or “Never have I ever gone to a nude beach”. Place the note cards face down on a small tray. Ask people to take turns picking and reading it aloud. Guests who have done the “never have I ever” will take a sip from their drink. That’s your cue to get them to share more!
2. “Guess Who” post it game
Write the name of a popular personality on the post it and stick it on the forehead of one of your guest. That guest will try to guess what is on the post it. He can ask yes or no questions to your other guests to gather clues about who the person might be.
A version of this game can be played by having names of common objects or animals instead of popular personalities. It’s pretty hilarious, especially when you divide your guests into teams and see which team can earn more guesses.
3. Message under the plate
Before your guests arrive, prepare note cards that you will place under the plate of each of your guests. On each note card, write an interesting description about one of your guests – one note card for each guest. Things like “Went on a safari and got chased by a hungry looking lion” or “Graduated as valedictorian of their high school class”. When your guests arrive, ask them to take turns reading the introduction and guess who it could be. To make sure your guests don’t get the introduction that describes them, put name cards on the plate to specify a seating arrangement.