25 Fun Christmas Activities At Work: Discover Your Holiday Spirit
The workplace can be dull during the holiday season, sometimes as spiritless as the Grinch himself. Work is usually not the place we want to be during this magical time of year. So, how about creating a little holiday spirit with some fun Christmas activities at work?
We can all agree that Christmas is something special. We decorate our homes and yards and seek holiday fun wherever it can be found. But what about the office?
If you’re hoping to spruce up your workplace for Christmas, you’ve come to the right place. We have 25 great ideas for fun Christmas activities at work that will bring the holiday spirit to your colleagues. Whether it’s in a traditional office setting or a remote environment, there are plenty of creative ways to celebrate this festive season.
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Secret Santa Gift Exchange
Organize a Secret Santa gift exchange, where each coworker anonymously selects and gives one gift to another recipient. It can be one large gift at a big office party or smaller gifts exchanged each week of December leading up to Christmas.
However, the trick is never letting the recipient know you’re their Secret Santa. Gifts are always dropped off in a “mysterious fashion” so the receiver doesn’t see who the gifter is. A good way to determine who partners with whom is to draw names out of a hat.
Ugly Christmas Sweater Contest
Encourage everyone to wear their most outrageous Christmas sweaters and vote on the ugliest one. The winner can enjoy a small prize, like a gift card to a nearby coffee shop. Of course, all Christmas activities should be accompanied by food and delicious treats.
It’s not an ugly Christmas sweater, but this adorable Grinch sweatshirt is an acceptable alternative. Find it here!
Decorate Your Desk:
Have a desk decorating contest, and let everyone show off their creative flair with festive decor. I once turned my office into a Santa Land candy shop and took home the lauded second prize trophy. I played Christmas music and kept a candy dish for my coworkers, who always managed to stop by throughout the day.
Cookie Swap
Organize a cookie exchange where each person brings a batch of homemade cookies to share. A nice touch is to have hot coffee, Wassail, or Warmed Cinnamon Punch (Red Hot candies melted in apple cider) available throughout the day. It makes the area smell wonderful.
Gingerbread House Decorating
Provide gingerbread house kits and host a friendly competition to see who can create the most intricate gingerbread masterpiece. You can play Christmas music for additional holiday cheer.
Christmas Hangout
Dedicate a break room or virtual hangout to a Christmas movie marathon with popcorn and hot chocolate if possible. If movies aren’t an option, have fun turning the breakroom into a Christmas wonderland. For example, create Santa’s workshop and use it as a home base to collect toys for needy children.
Holiday Karaoke
Set up a karaoke machine or virtual karaoke session for coworkers to sing their favorite Christmas songs. This will open up opportunities for holiday merriment accompanied by gales of laughter. This activity is so much fun, it should probably be at the top of our list of 25 fun Christmas activities at work!
Check out this best-selling karaoke machine here.
Santa’s Workshop
Organize a DIY craft session where coworkers can create handmade holiday decorations. Arrange for someone crafty to lead a class in wreathmaking, crafting sock snowmen, or making a decorative sign. The creative possibilities are endless!
Christmas Pajama Day
Encourage everyone to wear their coziest Christmas pajamas to work for a day. Wouldn’t it be great if we could do this every day?
White Elephant Gift Exchange
Have a White Elephant gift exchange, where participants trade funny and quirky gifts. Set a maximum dollar limit ahead of time. Everyone then purchases a gift to bring to the exchange.
The gifts are placed together, and participants draw numbers to determine the order of each person’s turn. The person with number one goes first and chooses their gift. After the gift has been opened, the person with number two can either “steal” number one’s gift or choose from those remaining.
Everyone takes a turn according to their number until each person has opened a gift. Then the person with number one gets a chance to steal a gift from someone. However, a gift can only be “stolen” twice, then it is “dead” and cannot be stolen again.
The perfect gift for your office gift exchange: My Favorite Coworker Gave Me This Notebook She Is Freaking Awesome: See it here.
Holiday Trivia
Host a Christmas-themed trivia quiz to test your coworkers’ knowledge of holiday traditions and history. All the trivia you need can come from a trivia game or from the internet. Everyone will enjoy hearing all of the crazy answers to the questions.
Christmas Card Exchange
Ask everyone to bring a stack of Christmas cards. Then set up a card station for coworkers to write festive wishes to each other throughout the day. The environment will be jolly as everyone travels around to deliver their good wishes.
Each office or cubicle can have a cute, self-decorated “mailbox” or a store-bought Christmas basket for their cards. Either way, all of your colleagues will love opening their cards full of Christmas cheer.
Office Scavenger Hunt
Create a holiday-themed scavenger hunt with clues hidden throughout the office or virtually within shared documents. Ask everyone to dress in a festive costume or an ugly Christmas sweater to add to the fun. Of course, the winner who finds the most clues gets a prize!
DIY Ornaments
Provide supplies for making custom ornaments, or have everyone bring their own and let your coworkers get creative. Bring photos of simple designs your colleagues can choose to copy if they want.
Holiday Charades
Play a game of charades using Christmas-related words and phrases. Select teams to play against each other. The team that guesses a series of five or 10 rounds correctly in the shortest amount of time wins.
Office Christmas Olympics
Turn your office into a winter wonderland for a day of fun competitions. Set up various holiday-themed games and challenges, such as a wrapping paper relay race, a snowball toss game, or a “reindeer antler” ring toss. Divide coworkers into teams and keep track of scores throughout the day. The winning team gets Christmas cookies!
Christmas Bingo
Play a round of Bingo with Christmas-themed prizes for the winners. Check out this Snowman Bingo Game for 24 players that’s guaranteed to get that holiday competitive spirit going.
Holiday Potluck
Organize a potluck lunch where everyone brings their favorite holiday dish to share. This is a great way to cheer coworkers up on a cold and dreary Monday. If an entire meal is too difficult to plan, try asking everyone to bring a holiday dessert instead.
Christmas Caroling
Gather a group of coworkers and sing Christmas carols in your office or virtually to spread some holiday cheer. Additionally, take a caroling trip around the block to bring holiday magic to everyone nearby.
Holiday Book Exchange
Ask coworkers to bring in their favorite holiday books to exchange and share with others. This is also a great idea for the office Christmas gift exchange.
Virtual Snow Globe Photo Booth
Create a virtual snow globe backdrop for video calls. Allow coworkers to take festive screenshots. Put up a giant piece of blue paper sprinkled with lots of glitter. Draw. a Christmas scene, such as a snowman or Christmas tree. Or you can add a real tree to the side of it. Whatever you decide to do, let your imagination run wild with holiday spirit.
Candy Cane Guessing Game
Fill a jar with candy canes and have a guessing game about the number of candies inside. The person with the closest guess wins the candy jar to take home.
Holiday Desk Door Decorating
Allow employees to decorate their office doors with festive themes. Seeing everyone’s joyful decor will quickly put you in a holiday frame of mind.
You’ll love this Funny Santa Dogs Door Banner that’s perfect for the office. Find it here.
Christmas Storytelling
Share your favorite holiday memories of heartwarming experiences. Or engage in a Christmas storytelling session for all to enjoy. Everyone loves a festive tale!
Festive Playlist Competition
Have coworkers submit their favorite holiday songs and create a collaborative office playlist to enjoy. If you have a sound system, pipe in the cheerful music to pump up and energize your coworkers for the holidays. If there is no sound system, get permission to share the playlist with everyone. They can enjoy listening to the playlist on smartphones using earbuds or keep it for later.
Wrapping Up Fun Christmas Activities At Work
A good suggestion is to select one day a week throughout December to enjoy a different holiday activity. For example, everyone might bring a potluck dish to enjoy for lunch hour game day on Friday. Then, everyone brings Christmas cookies the following Friday for a lunch-hour gingerbread cookie decorating contest.
Remember, the goal is to foster a sense of togetherness, joy, and camaraderie during the holiday season. These 25 fun Christmas activities at work can help you and your colleagues create wonderful memories while celebrating the holiday spirit in a fun and unique way. Plus, it brings Christmas magic to everyone, making the work environment brighter and more festive.
So, go ahead and spread holiday cheer at the office and have a blast with these exciting and fun holiday activities for the workplace!
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This is a great list of things to do for the holidays at work! Wearing an ugly Christmas sweater is so fun 🙂 And as a book lover myself, I’m so glad you added book exchange!!!
What a fun post! These Christmas activities for the office sound like a blast and a great way to spread holiday cheer!
I love these <3 <3 <3
So many great ideas here! I love secret Santa!
I love the idea of a holiday book exchange. I work from home mostly so that would be a fun way to celebrate!
Love your blog post! I’ll definitely encourage my relatives to do a cookie swap and also let the kids enjoy Christmas Carol!
Such fun holiday activities! Will definitely have to put some of these on my list. I get way into the holiday’s. Especially holiday movies.
I use to love the white elephant gift exchange. It was so much fun!
Great post as looking to expand on my holiday traditions! 🙂
I can’t wait to make my December to-do list and put all these things on it!
Secret Santa and Ugly Sweater exchanges are always fun!
I love these fun ideas! A holiday scavenger hunt would be so fun and such a good ice breaker for people in the office. I love the idea of a book exchange too as a bit of an easier version of secret Santa or white elephant.
Great ideas to bring you together with the in-laws as well lol.
I love the ideas in this post. The ugliest Christmas sweater contest made me laugh. Great read!