5 Door Prize Games for Your Next Christmas Party

Door prizes have long been popular at Christmas parties, and it’s not hard to see why. For one thing, they add a little extra excitement, incentivizing people to turn out. Secondly, they don’t take up much time if you have other activities planned. And, as you’ll learn if you keep reading, they’re relatively easy to set up.

But before we go any further, what is a door prize? It’s a prize given to a party guest for winning a drawing or simple game that they typically enter as they arrive at your event. While they’re often a feature of office parties and charity events, there’s no reason why door prizes can’t be part of any decent-sized holiday gathering.

If you’re looking for a door prize game for your own Christmas party, you’ve come to the right place. Come on in, get comfortable, and check out a few door prize ideas that could add a unique touch to your event.

Raffle

Let’s start with the most obvious option. For a raffle, guests simply enter a drawing as they arrive, with the winner of the prize announced later in the event. Players may get a ticket with a number on it, or write their names on slips of paper to be drawn from the proverbial hat. There’s not much more to say about raffles, except that you can add a little pizzaz to the proceedings by using the printable slips at the end of this article.

Guess the Number

In this door prize game, guests are asked to guess the number of some item. It could be ornaments on the Christmas tree or candies in a jar. Whatever the items are, for the sake of fairness, entrants should be given limited time to peak at them before trying to guess. The person who comes closest to guessing the correct number wins the prize.

Guess the Gift

For this game, put a number of wrapped presents on display and have guests attempt to guess what’s in them. Players should be allowed to briefly look at the gifts and possibly even handle them before making their guess. The key is picking gifts that offer your guests reasonable clues by having distinctive shapes, sounds, weights, or even smells. If you’re feeling creative, you could even include gift tags with riddles about what’s inside. The winner is the person with the most correct guesses.

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Here’s another door prize game that’s on point for the holidays. Put a number of cheap ball ornaments in gift boxes and have guests attempt to guess how many are in each. Players may handle and (gently) shake the boxes before guessing. The winner is the person with the most correct guesses, with the next tiebreaker being the person who came closest to guessing the total number of ornaments.

Name That Scent

Pick up some holiday candles and have people guess the scent using only their noses. Start with common holiday scents like pine, peppermint and gingerbread, and have players progress to more difficult scents like sugar cookie, nutmeg, or apple cider. The winner of the prize is the one with the most correct guesses. If there’s a tie and the winner is chosen via drawing, you can use the candles themselves as consolation prizes.

Door Prize Ideas: The best door prize is something that all (or almost all) of your guests would enjoy. The obvious choices are gift cards and gift baskets. Gift cards are more generally useful, whereas baskets are great for putting on display at your party. If you’re not satisfied with those options and want something more novel, check out my list of White Elephant gifts.

Printables

Here are a couple of printables you might find useful for running your own Christmas door prize games. Please note that these PDF files are for personal use only.

Here’s a file with raffle slips for your guests to write their names on. Simply print and cut along the lines to separate the slips. To download the file, click here or on the preview image below.

Here are some paper slips with extra room for the guessing games mentioned above. Click here or on the image to download.

Still not convinced about Christmas door prizes? Hey, don’t knock ’em until you’ve tried ’em. See what I did there? Happy Holidays, and best of luck with your event planning!