The shoutout round
- Any size
- Needs notes collected ahead
Guests write a quick thank-you for a colleague in advance. Read a handful aloud during the party, anonymously.
Best for: people who hate performing
OFFICE CHRISTMAS PARTY GAMES
Office Christmas party games that don't feel like a training day
Zero-prep and low-prep games for mixed departments, small teams and big all-hands parties, without the forced team-building energy.
- Seasonal guide
- Zero-prep + low-prep
What's your party like?
Seated dinner
A quick sit-down game between courses
Standing, mingling event
Zero-prep games that work at any size
Mixed departments
A shared fact game that mixes the room
Small team
Quick, zero-prep bluffing
Large company party
Zero-prep games that scale to a crowd
People who don't drink
Real scoring, not another drinking game
Short answer
Pick one zero-prep mingling game for a standing party, or one quick sit-down game for a seated dinner. Skip anything that reads like a workshop with a Santa hat on.
Top picks
One is genuinely zero effort. The other two just need a few notes collected from people ahead of time, nothing to buy or build.
Ugly holiday jumper vote
- Any size
- Zero prep
Vote by applause for a few categories: most colours, most effort, most confusing.
Best for: a big standing party with no fixed start time
Two truths, holiday edition
- Teams of 4-8
- Zero prep
Each person shares two true holiday habits and one invented one. The team guesses the lie.
Best for: a small team that doesn't know each other well yet
More ideas
Some need a few facts collected ahead of time, others need supplies. All worth it for a bigger or more seated party.
Guess the coworker
- Any size
- Needs facts collected ahead
Read an anonymous fun fact and have guests guess which colleague it belongs to.
How to play →
Ask a handful of volunteers for a fun fact in advance. Gets mixed departments talking about each other rather than sitting with their usual team.
White elephant, with a steal rule
- Any size
- Needs gifts + budget
Classic gift swap, but each turn a player can open a new gift or steal an opened one.
How to play →
Everyone already knows the format, so there's little explaining to do, and the steal rule gives quiet people a reason to speak up.
Desk trivia
- Teams of 3-5
- Needs a written quiz
Mixed teams, deliberately not seated by department, answer a short trivia quiz.
How to play →
Simple to run at scale, and mixing the teams forces people out of their usual corner of the office.
What to avoid
The point of an end-of-year party is that it isn't work.
- Trust falls, forced icebreaker questions, or anything run off a facilitator's script.
- Drinking games as the only option, since they leave anyone not drinking sitting out.
- Anything that singles one person out to perform in front of the whole office.
Don't want to build it yourself?
Already have a BanterBox for your work event?
The same personalised pack built for a team social works for the end-of-year party too. Workplace stories and habits become the games, no separate Christmas product needed.
Majority Rules
Real workplace habits and stories, built into questions the whole room plays at once.
4-20 players · 20-35 minutes
See how Majority Rules works
The Pitch
Every line gets read aloud by the judge, so nobody has to perform.
3-12 players · 15-30 minutes
See how The Pitch works
Secret Missions
Runs quietly through the whole party, no table required.
6-20 players · Runs all event
See how Secret Missions worksMore guides
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