Christmas Drinking Games

• 🎄   Why Christmas Drinking Games?
• 🎬   1. Christmas Movie Drinking Games
• 🃏   2. Holiday Kings Cup
• 🙅   3. Christmas Never Have I Ever
• 🎅   4. Naughty or Nice
• 🎩   5. Santa’s Hat
• 🎁   6. White Elephant Drinking Game
• 🎶   7. Name That Christmas Tune
• ❄️   8. Holiday Trivia Drinking Game
• 📺   9. Christmas Commercial Bingo
• 🍪   10. Cookie Swap Challenge
• 🧣   11. Ugly Sweater Penalties
• 🥂   12. Midnight Countdown
• 📋   Tips for a Festive Night

The holiday season is the one time of year when everyone’s gathered together - family, friends, coworkers - all crammed into someone’s living room with nowhere to go. Why not make the most of it? Christmas drinking games take the holiday spirit and add just enough chaos to turn an ordinary gathering into a night worth remembering.

Whether you’re watching holiday movies with friends, hosting a Christmas Eve party, or just trying to survive your third family gathering of the week, these festive drinking games will keep the good times flowing. And yes, every single one of these works just as well with hot cocoa or apple cider if alcohol isn’t your thing.

Looking for more general drinking game ideas? Check out our full list of 17+ insanely fun drinking games for year-round options.

Why Christmas Drinking Games?

Regular drinking games are great, but there’s something special about holiday-themed ones. They tap into shared experiences - everyone’s watched Elf, everyone’s dealt with awkward family questions, everyone knows at least a few lines of “Jingle Bells.” That shared knowledge creates instant connection and inside jokes that last well past New Year’s.

Plus, holiday gatherings often mix people from different friend groups. Your college buddy meets your work friend meets your cousin’s significant other. A structured game breaks the ice far better than standing around the cheese platter making small talk about the weather.

1. Christmas Movie Drinking Games

Christmas movie drinking games are the easiest way to combine two holiday traditions: watching movies and drinking. Pick a classic Christmas film, assign drink triggers for recurring events, and settle in for a cozy night of escalating chaos.

Best Movies and Their Rules

Elf is the gold standard for Christmas movie drinking games. Drink when Buddy eats something sugary, says “Santa!”, gets confused by the real world, or hugs someone who doesn’t want to be hugged. By the time Buddy puts syrup on spaghetti, you’ll be feeling the holiday spirit.

Home Alone offers plenty of material too. Drink every time Kevin sets a trap, the Wet Bandits get injured, Kevin screams, or someone says “Kevin!” The final act of this movie becomes a genuine workout.

A Christmas Story keeps things steady - drink when Ralphie daydreams, the narrator speaks, the leg lamp appears, or someone says “You’ll shoot your eye out.” The repetitive structure of the movie makes this one hit harder than you’d expect.

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation practically drinks itself. Drink when Clark Griswold gets frustrated, something breaks, Cousin Eddie says something inappropriate, or the Christmas lights malfunction. This movie has so many triggers that you might want to use smaller sips.

How to Set It Up

Gather your group around a TV with drinks ready. Print or write out the rules where everyone can see them. Assign a “ref” to call out triggers if people are getting distracted by the movie. Use beer or wine rather than hard liquor - these movies have more drink moments than you’d think.

2. Holiday Kings Cup

Take the classic Kings Cup card game and wrap it in tinsel. The core mechanics stay the same - draw cards, follow rules - but every card gets a Christmas makeover.

Christmas Card Rules

• Ace - Jingle Bell Waterfall: Everyone starts drinking. You can’t stop until the person to your right stops. Classic waterfall, holiday name.
• 2 - Snowball Fight (Give 2): Point at someone. They drink twice.
• 3 - Under the Mistletoe (Take 3): You drew it, you drink three.
• 4 - Christmas Floor: Last person to touch the floor drinks.
• 5 - Reindeer Games (Guys drink): All the guys take a sip.
• 6 - Mrs. Claus (Ladies drink): Ladies take a sip.
• 7 - North Star (Thumb Master): Place your thumb on the table anytime. Last to notice and follow drinks.
• 8 - Snowmate: Pick a drinking buddy for the rest of the game.
• 9 - Christmas Rhyme: Say a holiday word, go around rhyming. First person who can’t, drinks.
• 10 - Cheers, Everyone Drinks: Toast the season!
• Jack - Elf Rule: Make up a Christmas-themed rule everyone must follow.
• Queen - Santa’s Question Master: If you answer one of this person’s questions, you drink.
• King - Fill the King’s Cup: Pour some of your drink into the center cup. Fourth King drawn drinks the whole thing.

This version adds just enough novelty to make veterans of regular Kings Cup feel like they’re playing something fresh.

3. Christmas Never Have I Ever

Never Have I Ever gets a festive upgrade with holiday-specific statements. The rules are the same as always: someone says something they’ve never done, and everyone who has done it takes a drink.

Great Christmas Statements

The key is mixing universal holiday experiences with specific ones that reveal stories:

• Never have I ever re-gifted a Christmas present
• Never have I ever eaten an entire gingerbread house
• Never have I ever cried during a Christmas movie
• Never have I ever peeked at presents before Christmas morning
• Never have I ever worn a matching family Christmas outfit
• Never have I ever forgotten to buy someone a gift
• Never have I ever kissed someone under the mistletoe
• Never have I ever gotten into an argument about a Christmas song
• Never have I ever burned a batch of Christmas cookies
• Never have I ever fallen asleep during midnight mass
• Never have I ever lied about liking a Christmas gift
• Never have I ever been the person who untangles all the Christmas lights
• Never have I ever gone Black Friday shopping at 5 AM
• Never have I ever pretended to like fruitcake

These prompts are designed to catch people off guard. The best rounds are when someone confidently says their statement, and then half the room drinks - revealing secrets nobody expected.

4. Naughty or Nice

This game turns the Santa Claus concept into a drinking game. One person reads a scenario, and everyone has to guess whether the reader has actually done it. Vote “naughty” (they did it) or “nice” (they didn’t). Everyone who guesses wrong drinks.

Example Scenarios

• “Eaten all the cookies meant for Santa” (naughty or nice?)
• “Donated to charity during the holidays” (naughty or nice?)
• “Intentionally given someone a terrible gift as a joke” (naughty or nice?)
• “Volunteered at a soup kitchen during Christmas” (naughty or nice?)
• “Stolen a decoration from someone else’s yard” (naughty or nice?)

The game works best when you mix genuinely wholesome scenarios with ridiculous ones. Players have to read each other’s poker faces, and the reveals create great stories and follow-up conversations.

5. Santa’s Hat

Santa’s Hat requires only a TV and a sticky note shaped like a Santa hat. Stick the hat cutout to the corner of the TV screen. When a character’s head lines up with the hat - making it look like they’re wearing it - everyone drinks.

This game pairs perfectly with any Christmas movie or even a regular TV show during the holidays. The anticipation of a character walking into the hat zone keeps everyone glued to the screen, and the false alarms are just as funny as the actual hits.

For best results, position the hat slightly off-center so it catches characters during close-up conversations. Action scenes with lots of movement create rapid-fire drinking moments.

6. White Elephant Drinking Game

Take the classic White Elephant gift exchange and add drinks. The basic rules stay the same - everyone brings a wrapped gift, people take turns picking or stealing - but add drinking triggers throughout.

Drink when: someone steals your gift, you unwrap something weird, a gift gets stolen three times and is locked in, you’re the last person to pick, or someone makes an over-the-top reaction to their gift.

The drinking element makes the strategic decisions of White Elephant even more entertaining. Do you steal the good gift and make someone drink, knowing they’ll come for revenge? The politics of it all become hilarious.

7. Name That Christmas Tune

Play a few seconds of a Christmas song and see who can name it first. The last person to guess correctly (or anyone who can’t guess at all) drinks. Play the obscure second verse instead of the intro for added difficulty.

Build a playlist ahead of time with a mix of obvious classics and deep cuts. “Jingle Bells” is easy mode. “Christmas Wrapping” by The Waitresses is hard mode. Throw in a few foreign-language Christmas songs to really stump the group.

Bonus round: Play a Christmas song backwards and see if anyone can identify it. Or play just the first two seconds of a song - that’s usually enough for die-hard Christmas music fans but impossible for everyone else.

8. Holiday Trivia Drinking Game

Turn Christmas knowledge into a competitive drinking game. Ask trivia questions about holiday movies, traditions, songs, and history. Wrong answers drink, right answers assign drinks to someone else.

Sample Questions

• What year was “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens published? (1843)
• How many gifts total are given in “The Twelve Days of Christmas”? (364)
• What country started the tradition of putting up a Christmas tree? (Germany)
• In “Home Alone,” where are the McCallisters going on vacation? (Paris)
• What’s the best-selling Christmas song of all time? (“White Christmas” by Bing Crosby)

Split into teams for larger groups. Each wrong answer means the whole team drinks. This creates accountability and some very passionate debates about whether someone’s answer was “close enough.”

9. Christmas Commercial Bingo

This game works if you’re watching live TV during the holidays. Create bingo cards with common Christmas commercial tropes: a family gathered around a fireplace, a car with a bow on it, a dog wearing antlers, a celebrity endorsement, fake snow, a jingle bell sound effect.

Every time you spot one, mark it off. First to get a line drinks to celebrate. Everyone else drinks to cope with their loss. The game essentially makes commercial breaks the most anticipated part of watching TV.

10. Cookie Swap Challenge

Combine holiday baking with drinking for a unique party activity. Everyone brings a batch of homemade Christmas cookies. Blindfolded, players taste each cookie and try to guess who made it or what flavor it is. Wrong guesses mean drinks.

This works especially well at potluck-style holiday parties where everyone’s already bringing food. The guessing creates funny moments, especially when someone’s “chocolate chip” is actually “chocolate chip with cayenne pepper.”

11. Ugly Sweater Penalties

At an ugly sweater party, the sweaters become part of the game. At the start of the night, vote on categories: ugliest sweater, most creative, most likely to scare children, best DIY effort. Winners in each category become “drink assigners” for the next round of whatever game you’re playing.

Throughout the night, anyone caught not wearing their ugly sweater (taking it off because it’s hot, for instance) has to take a penalty drink. Commitment to the bit is mandatory.

12. Midnight Countdown

For Christmas Eve parties that run late, this game builds toward midnight. Starting at 11 PM, set an alarm for random intervals. When the alarm goes off, everyone playing must complete a quick holiday challenge: sing a line from a Christmas song, name a reindeer, do your best Santa impression.

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The person who fails or goes last drinks. As midnight approaches, the alarms get more frequent and the challenges get harder. At midnight, everyone toasts and the game ends with a holiday cheers.

Tips for a Festive Drinking Game Night

The best Christmas drinking game nights feel effortless, but they take a little planning.

Setting the Scene

• Decorate the game area. Christmas lights, a small tree, or even just a few candles go a long way. The atmosphere matters.
• Make a holiday playlist. Background music between games keeps the energy up. Mix classic carols with modern holiday tracks.
• Serve themed drinks. Spiked eggnog, mulled wine, peppermint cocktails, or even just beer with candy cane stirrers make the night feel special.

Keeping Everyone Happy

• Offer non-alcoholic versions. Hot chocolate, cider, or sparkling water means nobody gets left out. The games work with any drink.
• Mix up the games. Start with something low-key like a movie drinking game, move to something active like Holiday Kings Cup, and wind down with Christmas Never Have I Ever.
• Don’t force participation. The holidays can be stressful enough. Let people join or watch at their own pace.

Food Matters

Holiday drinking games pair perfectly with holiday snacks. Set out a spread of cookies, cheese and crackers, pigs in blankets, and other finger food. Full stomachs mean slower intoxication and longer, more enjoyable game nights.

For more holiday game ideas beyond drinking, check out our guide to Christmas party games that work for all ages and occasions.