👉 Article Overview: Looking to make your holiday parties unforgettable? Our SnackNation team has curated 15 festive-themed team-building activities that will transform your gatherings from routine to remarkable—and way more fun!
‘Tis the season for hideous holiday sweaters, secret Santas, and…awkward office parties?
Holiday team-building activities can often feel forced and uncomfortable leaving coworkers silently counting down the minutes until they can politely whisk themselves mumbling excuses.
But happily, this is easily resolved!
With a dash of creativity and some holiday cheer, you can turn these half-hearted gatherings into some of the most anticipated highlights of the year.
So, grab a cup of your favorite hot chocolate, and read on for 15 holiday team-building activities that will have team members excited to finish the year on a high.
🔎 Looking for something new?Jump to a few of our favorite ideas for holiday team building: |
🛑 Stop! Do you want your holiday team-building activities to be a hit? Here are three key criteria to consider:
✅ Engagement: Ensure activities are fun and interactive to keep everyone involved.
✅ Inclusivity: Choose activities that cater to diverse interests and abilities within the team.
✅ Relevance: Align activities with your team’s goals and values for a meaningful experience.
1 Wreath Making Class
“Deck the halls with boughs of holly!”
The most effective team-building activities bring together distributed teams to perform interesting and engaging activities that they can share with each other.
Hobby-interest-style team-building activities are especially great for engaging kinesthetic employees in teams who will enjoy getting to work with their hands.
👉 Try this: Virtual Holiday Wreath-Making Class
For this class, team members will use an assortment of pre-mailed materials to create a faux wreath. The activity will be hosted by one of Confetti’s live hosts who are experts in their niche.
Courtesy of Confetti
More specifically, the host will, during the workshop, explain how to cut various decorative elements attach them to the base with wire, and use different materials and textures to create a balanced arrangement.
By the end of this fun team-building activity, participants will have a beautiful hand-made wreath to display in their virtual office and learn new skills to create their own unique-looking wreath arrangements.
McDermott International participated in an in-person version of this wreath making class to get into the holiday spirit!:
2 Holiday Mixer
“Get together with holiday games and snacks!”
Holiday Mixers are excellent holiday team-building activities for ushering in the festive season on a high. The best options for a holiday mixer that doubles up as a team-building activity incorporate games, socializers, and a lot of fun and laughs.
👉 Try this: Elf’s Virtual Merry Mingler
Elf’s Virtual Merry Mingler is the perfect choice for a holiday-themed team-building activity that’s guaranteed to raise spirits. The game is virtually set in Santa’s North Pole Village, however remote teams will have no problems finding their way. Your event organizer will guide you every step of the way.
The Merry Mingler includes breakouts, social mixer conversational activities, and two party games in the main mingler room.
Taylor Sharp, People & Culture Lead @ Beaumont People, shared their thoughts on company culture via LinkedIn:
“When I told a friend that I started working in P&C they said “oh, pizza and Christmas parties!” 🍕🍕
And though all of us in HR and P&C know our jobs are more than that, I don’t mind throwing the occasional pizza and Christmas party 😉
How important is a company’s culture to you?
Does it impact your job search or entice you to leave an organisation?
Is it what creates meaningful work?Pizza parties are usually the butt of a joke of a organisation trying to fix culture. But the opportunity to create space for your employees to breathe, sit back and enjoy each others company is so important! And who doesn’t love pizza??”
3 Holiday Game Show
“Bond with your teammates while playing a classic game show activity”
This holiday team building idea focuses on the old-school game shows we all know and love. From Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune to Family Feud and The Price is Right – there are so many game show activities you can add a holiday spin to.
👉 Try this: Holiday Family Feud (Coworker Edition)
Family Feud is one of the most popular game shows ever, and this Coworker Edition of the game is sure to bring the house down (in a good way!). Teams compete taking turns to guess the top 5 survey responses. The team with the most points wins the game!
Aside from the main round, you can’t miss the thrilling finale in the form of the final lighting round that all teams are eligible to compete in!
Want more ideas for team-building games that engage remote teams? Check out this list!
4 Christmas in July
“A refreshing holiday twist on a seasonal favorite.”
Celebrating Christmas in July provides a fun and unexpected break from the summer while fostering a spirit of camaraderie amongst colleagues. It’s also a great way to reignite the sense of sharing and bonhomie typically associated with the winter months, thereby strengthening team bonds.
👉 Try this: Santa’s Beach Party
For Santa’s Beach Party, get creative by combining traditional festive elements like fairy lights, decorated Christmas trees, and tinsel with sand, as well as beach umbrellas.
Encourage employees to wear beach attire while adding their own unique Christmas twist. Set up a photo booth that combines both beachy and Christmasy elements for extra fun. Do a beach-themed holiday scavenger hunt. Play Christmas carols mixed with tropical beats.
TalentWeb celebrated Christmas as a way to build team culture! Check out their post from LinkedIn:
5 Holiday Cookies!
“Spread the holiday cheer by decorating sugar-themed cookies as a team!”
Decorating cookies as a team helps encourage creativity and self-expression in a low-pressure environment. It promotes communication and collaboration as teams share ideas, tips, and tricks with one another. Decorating cookies also has a festive association, which spreads positivity and boosts team morale.
👉 Try this: Holiday Cookie Decorating
In this live event, an expert baking instructor will lead participants to decorate pre-baked sugar-themed cookies. The kits will be dispatched to participants ahead of D-day.
Included are decorating challenges, and they will get to show off their creations at the end of the event. The best part of this activity is that you can set it up to engage both remote and virtual teams too.
Also read: 22 Best Online Games to Strengthen Team Spirit Among Remote Employees
6 Obscure Holiday!
“Why wait till the official holiday season starts?”
This team-building activity involves picking an obscure holiday that isn’t typically mainstream and setting up a virtual holiday team-building activity around it. The remote employee engagement idea is a great jumping-off point to foster teamwork and genuine camaraderie.
👉 Try this: Pick out an under-represented holiday to celebrate like National Pizza Day! Or Taco Tuesday! Or International Talk Like a Pirate Day (September 19)!
Ideate theme-specific virtual holiday party ideas that incorporate team-building games, and activities for short durations (no more than an hour or two hours). These can be in the form of in-person events or online Zoom games .
Looking for more ideas? Don’t miss these team-building guides!
7 Create Holiday Cards
“Surprise your colleagues with self-designed Christmas cards!”
Seasonal greeting cards are a dime a dozen, but a personalized Christmas card has a different kind of appeal. Recipients are sure to appreciate the thought and creativity that went into handcrafting a unique greeting card just for them.
👉 Try this: BYO Holiday Hand Lettering
In the BYO Holiday Hand Lettering virtually hosted class, participants get to design a holiday-themed word or card so they can decorate holiday cards, place cards, or gift cards. We love how you can use materials that are easily available in your house to participate in this class.
The class consists of live demos that demonstrate different hand lettering styles, basic lettering techniques, blending and writing techniques to add depth and dimension, and techniques for adding flourishes and embellishments.
Convert this into a team activity where your coworkers share the greeting cards they made at the end!
8 Holiday Party
“Invite your coworkers to a holiday party celebration!”
What better way to ring in the festivities than a company holiday party? Aside from connecting remote teams, it also helps boost morale and strengthens team bonds.
👉 Try this: Virtual Holiday Hijinks
A fast-paced, intense, and high-energy holiday party game, the Virtual Holiday Hijinks from the team at Outback Team Building will have teams racing against the clock as they complete holiday-themed challenges.
Each completed challenge will earn teams points and help them climb up the leaderboard to be crowned the Holiday Hijinks Champions!
9 $10 White Elephant
“10 dollars is all you need”
In a typical White Elephant, team members bring gifts and place them in a common gift pool. Players then take turns selecting their own gifts from the pile through lots. They can then unwrap the gift or try to steal one from another.
Each gift can only be stolen a maximum number of two times. The idea is the entertainment value involved as opposed to the value of any of the gifts.
👉 Try this: Funny White Elephant
Allow each person to bring a zany, unique, or fun gift with a maximum value of $10 each, and let the games begin!
The Verisk Casualty Solutions crew ran a white elephant for their Jersey City office. Looks like fun! :
10 “Secret Facts” Snowball Fight
“An epic snowball showdown that’s anything but cold!”
Courtesy of Fun Retrospectives
Snowball fights are a fun way to boost morale and productivity while alleviating stress and pressure in the process. How about a variation of the traditional snowball fight?
👉 Try this: “Secret Facts” Snowball Fight
Everyone writes down a secret fact, then you throw it into the middle, and then the person who reads it out loud has to guess who it is. One snowball gets thrown for every wrong answer!
You can even set this up as an “appreciation” activity where everyone writes down one shout-out about their peers that they want to give them (but is read by someone else).
11 Christmas Trivia Games
“Trivia games wth a holiday twist!”
Christmas trivia games are a fun way to bring together virtual or distributed teams fostering a sense of connectedness despite the physical distance. Aside from livening the atmosphere up, they also encourage some friendly competition, and may even reveal hidden hobbies and talents!
👉 Try this: Frost’s Virtual Holiday Trivia
In this exciting virtually-hosted trivia game, your coworkers will join the Frosts in the lounge of their brand new ice hotel.
Participants will compete to win against each other by answering three rounds of holiday and winter-themed trivia questions. They’ll also get opportunities to learn more about each other as they take part in a round of ‘Frost’s Icebreaker Questions.’
12 Decorate Your Office
Transform your workspace into a Winter Wonderland!
As far as holiday team-building activities go, this idea is great for promoting creativity, collaboration, and festive cheer amongst coworkers. It will encourage team members to work towards a common goal in a fun and relaxed atmosphere.
👉 Try this: Office Decorating Party
Divide co-workers into smaller groups and assign different areas in the office to each group. Fix a budget and allocate decorating materials for each group. Set up a holiday-based theme and hold a competition for the best-decorated workspace. The winners walk away with prizes.
13 Secret Santa
“Send employee gifts with the classic holiday gift swap!”
Secret Santa is one of those holiday traditions that never go out of style. For this holiday season, why not implement a Secret Santa to double up as a team-building activity? It will bring down any silos that have built up over the year and encourage thoughtful interactions among team members. You won’t know who your Secret Santa is until the big reveal!
👉 Try this: Office Secret Santa
Secret Santa is an old Western Christmas tradition that involves a group of friends, or in this case, colleagues, giving each other gifts anonymously. Everyone participates so no one goes without a gift, which means everyone’s a winner.
You can opt for one gift for just one day or several mini-gifts daily during Christmas week. For extra fun, encourage colleagues to spend some time guessing who their Secret Santa might be.
Staffing firm, The Axel Group, celebrated the holidays with an in-office secret Santa!
14 Make Gingerbread Houses
“You can’t go wrong with a gingerbread house-making class this holiday season!”
Gingerbread house making is one of the most popular Christmas team-building activities because aside from creating your own gingerbread house, each and every team member also gets to eat it!
Sharing food and ‘breaking bread’ create strong bonds between team members while encouraging festive fun and spreading the holiday spirit!
👉 Try this: Virtual Gingerbread House Making Class
For this class, gingerbread house kits with easy-to-assemble pieces are dispatched to participants ahead of their scheduled class.
A dedicated host will walk you through decorating your gingerbread pieces with various icing designs and techniques, assembling your house, and then finally adding the finishing flourishes!
This virtual celebration can be planned for any time in December for employees to receive their kit in the mail and join in!
Oasis Solutions planned an in-office gingerbread making activity to ring in the holiday season:
15 Holiday-themed Watch Party
“Gather around for festive flicks and holiday cheer!”
Watch parties are effective ways to create a relaxed atmosphere that encourages casual interactions among colleagues outside of the stress and pressure of work.
Generally, holiday-themed watch parties encourage team members to build connections and come up with talking points, against the backdrop of the fun and nostalgia of a winter holiday.
👉 Try these ideas:
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Watch a Christmas movie.
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Watch a big sporting event (like an NFL game).
Remember to pick a watch party theme that will appeal to all your colleagues, not just a few, so there’s a sense of inclusivity and genuine enjoyment in keeping with the holiday spirit.
Also, consider a post-watch-party discussion or reflective activity, so there’s space for sharing thoughts and celebrating the festive season.
Looking for more fun virtual event ideas to engage teams? Don’t miss these resources:
People Also Ask These Questions About Holiday Team Building Activities
Q: What are some fun holiday team-building activities?
- A: Fun holiday team-building activities include virtual escape rooms, holiday trivia contests, and festive cooking challenges. These activities foster collaboration while keeping the holiday spirit alive.
Q: How can holiday team-building activities boost morale?
- A: Holiday team-building activities boost morale by bringing the team together in a relaxed, festive setting. They create opportunities for bonding, reduce stress, and show employees they are appreciated.
Q: What’s the best way to plan a virtual holiday team-building event?
- A: The best way to plan a virtual holiday team-building event is to choose an activity that’s easy to participate in remotely, send out festive supplies in advance, and ensure the event is well-organized and engaging for everyone.
