Family games night... Help!

[Alittlebitwary]

As we're away at Christmas I've offered to host family in January and suggested we do a family games night with buffet food.
The problem is... I have no idea what games! The kids range from age 3 to 18... I see all these amazing looking ideas on insta, but realistically we'll be 2 days back from an abroad holiday and I want easy, silly, low effort games the whole family can enjoy.

Does anyone have any that you play that you love / go down well each year?
I remember when I was little we used to write a story by folding a bit of paper, writing a sentence and passing it on to the next person for the next sentence, then we'd read out the story at the end which was usually hilarious. Or stick a post it on your head with a famous person written on and you have to guess who you are. Don't think the smaller kids would get it though 😂

Any more up to date / tried and tested games night ideas?🙏

We’ve been playing this game Empire at family gatherings, great with all ages, little kids can play on their own once they get it from maybe age 7 or 8, and on a team with a parent if they prefer.

It sounds complicated but it isn’t!
https://our1chance.com/how-to-play-the-game-empire-campfire-party-game/

Thanks, that sounds interesting! Never heard of it but even the 3yo can pick a character :-) could give it a go!

Yeah, the 3 yo could pick a character for their parent to be, and they could be on a team together. It’s funny because you’re asking eg grandma - grandma, are you Dobby the Elf? Or, grandma, are you Father Christmas? Or Peppa Pig? That’s often all it takes to entertain little ones! And it needs nearly no setup. We don’t play it with themes but you can do.

Chain pictionary? 2 teams, one person from each team goes to organiser and gets an item to draw, rest of team have to guess what it is, the correct gyesser goes to organiser with the answer and to be given the next clue. You can have 2 separate clue lists so each team can't cheat by overhearing the other team. First team to guess all the clues wins. 3 yo can help guess if not draw

Chocolate game - roll a die, if you roll a 6 put on hat, scarf and gloves and attempt to eat a wrapped chocolate bar with knife and fork, while die rolling goes on around you. As soon as another 6 rolled you have to stop eating chocolate and hand items over. You might want plenty of forks to avoid germ spreading, and some treat size choc bars for those who didn't get any of the main present

Paper plate game - put a paper plate on your head, draw a specified picture on the plate - while on your head! Vote on best drawing often best done without knowing the artist of each one. Silly, fun, almost no prep required.

Squeak piggy squeak. Sit in circle, one person blindfolded in the middle. Sits on someone's knee (or touches on shoulder or whatever). Blindfolded person says squeak piggy squeak - victim has to squeak and blindfolded person guess who it is. If guess right swap blindfold, if not move on and try again, if squeaker giggles then they get blindfolded whether they are guessed or not. Again silly and low prep

The card game Pig is good with a mixed generation group. All you need is a pack of playing cards. https://bicyclecards.com/how-to-play/pig/

Flour game. Press flour into a small bowl then turn out on a tray. Add a small sweet to middle. You have to take turns in cutting a slice off the flour cake with a knife. Whoever causes the sweet to fall has to retrieve it from the pile with their teeth!

Kim's game - items on a tray, say 15. Look at for a minute then cover tray. 5 mins to write down all the items - little children coukd pair up with an adult. Variation - remove 1 item and everyone else has to identify what is missing.

Odd or even. Give everyone 5 grains of rice, or buttons, or whatever. Each person puts any number up to 5 in their clenched fist and proffers it to another, asking odd or even. The guesser guesses, and the fist is opened to reveal. If right the challenger hands one to guesser, if wrong guesser hands one to challenger. Last person with rice wins. You can speed this up if necessary by starting with fewer items each or confiscating some from each player left in after 5 minutes. Little ones can play the game, they just may need help working out if they've won the round or not!

The Sock Game is good fun and playable by a wide age range. We had good fun playing it with friends and our children.

https://www.thesockgame.co.uk

Dobble and taco cat goat cheese pizza are huge hits in our multi generational house for games night. The second game has blank cards to add your own funny things too. They are both very simple but the more alcohol the funnier they get

I've not seen this one before, looks fab!

Herd mentality is a family fav for us, played at 80 year olds party with children as young as 6 playing

We always have a few games of good old bingo , buy a few cheap prizes from Homebargains and everyone loves it

Bingo
Articulate - in teams without the board
Taco, cat, pizza
Dobble
Grabolo

Junior colour brain

The present dice game. Google it, there are lots of versions but it is brilliant fun.

Host your own race night is quite good fun for multi age groups. You can buddy up adults and kids and the kids really enjoy watching the races on the TV.

Big bit of paper/flip chart 2 people.
person in front of the paper with a pen second person behind them draws on their back with a finger. Simple things like stick men for younger kids words for older kids adults and the person in front has to draw it on the paper.

How well do you know me. Someone asks questions about another family member they write down the answer and other teams/individuals Aldo write down the answer. The sillier the questions the better.

The chocolate game
hunt the thimble
work for amy age.
or dobble, uno with the 3 year old excluded
pop up pirate or similar that 3yrs would like but everyone else bored….

www.wikihow.com/Play-the-Knife-and-Fork-Chocolate-Game

Thanks so much, plenty of ideas there! I'm going to have a click through all the links, but all sound great 😃 I also thought about getting a Twister mat which I haven't played in years!

I'm getting a cheap (£20ish) karaoke machine - comes with two mics and I guess you can challenge people to sing certain songs and score them like those talent elimination shows.