Christmas party games - any good ideas?

[lilibet]

What do you play after Christmas dinner? This year I have 10 people age from 6 to 75 including two very self concious 14 year olds. I have already overspent (big surprise there!!) and so don't really want to go and spend another £20+ on pictionary or something like that. Does anyone have any good ideas other than charades?

[WideWebWitch]

Celebs is good (and free!) and would be ok for all ages. Everyone gets a piece of paper and writes down the names of as many celebs as they can think of - they can be dead or alive, fictional characters, anyone at all. The paper is ripped up so all the names get put into a large bowl. Then divide into teams and each team gets one minute to try to guess as many of the names as possible. One person in each team starts, takes a name out of the bowl and tries to describe that person to the rest of their team. Each correct guess gets a point and that team keeps going until their minute is up. Keep going until all the names have been guessed.

[hmb]

Or pin a celbs name on everyone's back as they enter. they have to ask everyone else questions to find out who they are. It helps to break the ice.

[batey]

We play a similar version to this (was called Rizla, as you stuck a Rizla paper on your forehead). But we do it that each person takes turns in asking questios and the others can only answer yes or no. If you get a yes you can ask another question, if not wait until your turn comes again. It's good fun doing someone elses name who's in the room with you. But you need to be more "sensitive" to the answers!

[SueW]

Card games like Newmarket with an ordinary pack of playing cards. Our 6yo DD can play this but 10 would prob be too many as each person would only get v small hand. Perhaps double up with younger ones or allow some people to opt out.

[SueW]

Or Uno is good too.

Personally I don't go for games which force everyone to be involved and I hate the guess the celebs ones and charades. Too much focus on me, IYSWIM.

[janh]

We love Uno too. Also, this year I have found a small boxed set of cards (with dinger) to play Yes/No interlude with - I am giving it to one of the kids as a pres so it is wrapped now and I can't look at it but they go, eg

1. how old are you?
   
2. are you really?
   
3. that's quite old, isn't it? (perhaps could be turned round for 75-yr-old! )
   
4. you didn't say no then, did you?
   etc etc
   
   We have played it randomly before but I'm sure it will be easier this way, we always run out of questions halfway through. (It was £8 in local toyshop but if you have an inventive person you could play it without!)
   
   And we have a set of "Kids' Trivia" questions, 6 to a card so you can use them for the younger kids when playing Trivial Pursuit (if you happen to have that already). Not sure where we got those from though.

[Enid]

CRANIUM! It's expensive - £30, but we played last night and it is hilarious and really good fun. Combines the best bits of Pictionary, Triv, Articulate and charades.

[janh]

Another good one is Jenga (or Timba or a few other names too I think) where you build a tower out of oblong wooden blocks in 3s, and take it in turns to pull one out near the bottom and add it to the top until it all crashes down.