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Christmas Tree Clue Hunt

Materials Needed

  • Green construction paper
  • "Clues" to use on the trees
  • Gift to find as the end
  • Cut out 10 or more Christmas trees from construction paper and number them in order. These will be used to write your clues on. You will then create clues for each “tree” and hide them in the proper location.

    Example: Have the first clue read “The next clue can be found where the dog eats his lunch.” then hide the next clue by the dog bowl, or “The next clue can be found by the brush for your teeth” then have the next clue hidden in the bathroom. That next clue will lead them to another location for another clue and so on. Send the kids all over the house finding clues until the last one leads them to their present.

    The clues can be as hard or easy as you want them to be, depending on your children’s ages. If you have a wide range of ages make some of the clues harder for the older kids and others easier for the younger ones. Just make sure the older ones know to let the little ones answer when they can.

    You can make a set of clues for each child and have them each take a turn finding their gifts together, or one set of clues for a family present everyone can enjoy.

    The kids will have a blast running about finding the clues and will make gift opening more about the family working together and less about the actual presents. It is a great addition to any family tradition year after year since the clues can get harder as the kids get older. This is also good for any special gift you may want to give an adult since you can make it just for them (many Christmas day wedding rings have been found this way!)

    Don’t Say “Christmas”

    Materials Needed

  • Tokens, jingle bells, clothes pins or some other easily worn and removed item
  • Pick a word that is taboo to say. Christmas is commonly used but you can choose any word that is likely to be said repeatedly at your Christmas party. For example Santa, present, and tree could also work. Tell all the party guests the taboo word and pass out a token to each guests. With smaller parties consider giving each guest more than one token.

    For tokens clothes pins work very well since that are easy to clip on and take and will not damage anyone’s Christmas outfits. If you are the crafty type you can decorate the clothes pins to match the Christmas theme. Some people prefer using a small Christmas themed object on a string or ribbon like a plastic ornament or candy cane. Your guests can keep these tokens around their neck and remove it should they say the taboo word.

    Now just continue with your party normally but, whenever a guest says the taboo word the first person to call them out gets the token from the guest that said the taboo word. This continues until near the end of the party when the person who has collected the most tokens is declared the winner and awarded a prize.