12 Days of Giftmas Christmas Game

This fun 12 days of giftmas Christmas game will have players rolling and racing to win prizes before their competitors. It’s an easy, fun, and festive Christmas party game that players of all age will love!

While the 12 days of Christmas isn’t one of my favorite Christmas songs, I do think it makes one of the most fun Christmas party themes! In the past we’ve done a 12 days of Christmas gift exchange, 12 days of Christmas games (like an entire Olympics of Christmas games), and of course – given 12 days of Christmas gifts to friends every year.

We’ve been coming up with new Christmas games for over 12 years now, and people ask me all the time for Christmas party games that incorporate gifts for prizes (kind of like the Christmas saran wrap game or our viral Let’s Make a Deal game).

I thought it’d be fun to create a new prize winning game that is a play on the 12 days of Christmas. There may not be any turtle doves or partridges in this game – but there are twelve gifts and a ton of fun!

The basic idea is that everyone is rolling dice and based on what they roll, moving forward or backward up a prize ladder, claiming gifts as they go! Because it’s based on the roll of a die, you just never know what’s going to happen – but you better hope you move fast because the gifts also run out as you climb higher on the prize ladder and you don’t want to miss out!

Who is this game best for?

• Anyone who likes to win prizes – this one is a great way to give out prizes to everyone, kind of like Christmas bingo. But in a much more creative way than bingo!
• Older kids, teens, and adults – as long as the people playing understand that not everyone is going to win every prize, they will enjoy this game! Maybe avoid it with the youngest kids who will be upset when the prizes run out toward the end!
• Groups of 6 or more – you can play this with any size as long as you have enough supplies for everyone! And the more people playing means the more prizes you probably need to have!

Supplies

While you don’t need much to play this game, there are some important things you will need and luckily all of those are things you probably already have around your house or can get quickly!

• Game printout – I recommend having at least one of these around. You can either print out the small copies or print it out big for everyone to see but after you play a round or two, people will get it! These are available to download at the bottom of the post!
• Dice – you’ll need one die per person (just one, not two). I recommend having different colors for people but that’s not necessary! I have this pack of dice and use it ALL the time!
• Playing pieces – you’ll need one playing piece per person. We 3D printed little Christmas characters because I thought it was fun, but you could use something like these Christmas characters, LEGO mini figures, or just colored board game pawns, or even just numbers. Just make sure it’s easy for people to keep track of their player!
• Tape – you’ll need some sort of tape, ribbon, or something else to make lines on a table. I used this colored tape in red and green.
• Numbers – these are included in the PDF printout at the end of this post, but you can absolutely just write the numbers 1 to 12 on pieces of paper.
• Gift boxes – you’ll need 12 different gift boxes that are just the kind you can pull the top off to open (and leave open). I used tins from the dollar store, but you can also just use boxes of any kind. Also, they don’t have to have lids – I just liked the element of surprise!
• Prizes – I’ve explained how the prizes work in the game setup below, but the basic idea is that you’ll need twelve different prizes for each step in the game. That’s the whole “giftmas” thing.

How to Setup

This game is pretty easy to play, but the setup does take a second and some shopping. None of it is time consuming, but you do need to think about it!

Prep Your Prizes

Here is how the prizes work in this game. Think of this game like it has a ladder of 12 rungs where each ladder is a “day” in the 12 days of Giftmas, and with each day there is an associated prize box. The first few days have lower value prizes and have enough prizes for everyone playing to get one. But by the end, the later days/steps have higher prizes values and less prizes in them. And the final “day” is the highest value and only one prize inside.

This is what our prize setup looked like to give you an idea. We had 12 people playing so your numbers might look different than ours. I’ve included a whole list of prize ideas at the bottom of this post if you need more ideas!

1. Day 1 – (12) individual Christmas Oreos
2. Day 2 – (12) candy canes
3. Day 3 – (12) $1 bills
4. Day 4 – (10) chapsticks (we went down by two items)
5. Day 5 – (10) packs of gum
6. Day 6 – (10) $2-$3 lotto tickets
7. Day 7 – (8) bags of candy (we went down by another two items here)
8. Day 8 – (8) back scratchers (we bought these ones and they were a hit!)
9. Day 9 – (6) $5 bills (went down by two again)
10. Day 10 – (4) Chiefs Beanies (went down by two again)
11. Day 11 – (2) $25 gift cards (went down by two again)
12. Day 12 – (1) $50 bill (went down to just one prize for the final day)

We didn’t really start dropping major numbers until the last few days because we wanted everyone to win at least a handful of things, and it worked well I think. But you can do what works for you as long as you incrementally decrease the number of prizes in gifts in some way, and the final gift can only have one item to end the game.

Cut out the numbers and tape them to the top of your gift boxes so you remember what’s inside and where they go on the board!

Set Up Your 12 Days of Giftmas Board

To set up your game board, tape 12 lines running down a table using the colored tape (or whatever you want). Then put all of the playing pieces at the beginning of the table, before the first line of colored tape.

Then add your prize boxes to the lines, starting with 1 at the beginning of the table and 12 at the end.

How to play 12 Days of Giftmas

This game is super simple to play, but you’ll want to read through the rules a couple of times to make sure you can explain it to everyone carefully before you start. You don’t want some people to be following the rolling rules and others not, or it totally messes with the game!

Also – if you’re more of a visual person, there’s a video in this post that shows how to play as well! It’s sometimes easier to see in play!

Start by giving everyone a playing piece and a die. This will be their die and their playing piece of the entire game.

1 – Everyone Rolls and Moves

Then have everyone go to a table or the floor, just not the prize table. On the count of three, everyone rolls their die at the same time and looks at what they rolled. Everyone will then go to the prize table and move their playing piece according to their roll.

If they:

• Roll a 1, 2, 3, 4 – move their person on the first line if it’s the first roll OR if it’s a later roll, they move their person ahead one line.
• Roll a 5 – they don’t move and stay where they’re currently at.
• Roll a 6 – if it’s the first roll, they stay where they’re at. If it’s a later roll, they move back one line (only as far as one space behind the first line of the table).

2 – Distribute Gifts for Giftmas

Once everyone has moved their pieces according to their roll, it’s time for the prizes! Do this in order:

1. If someone moved forward to a line with a gift box that has not been opened yet – open that gift box and anyone who moved to the new line takes ONE of the prizes in the box. So for example, if they moved to the line with the $1 bills, they would open the $1 bill box and everyone on that line would get a $1 bill and leave the remaining ones in the box.
2. If someone moved forward to a line with a gift box that has already been opened and still has prizes inside – they can take one of the remaining prizes inside the box and leave the others.
3. If someone moved forward to a line with an open gift box that’s empty – they get nothing but can still keep rolling to win other later prizes!

Important Notes on the prizes

• No double dipping – You can only take a prize when you move forward to a line the first time. So if you go backwards at any point, you don’t get to double-dip and take a second prize when you go backwards to a line or when you move forward to a line you were already at before.
• Have a roll of to win limited prizes – if there is ever a case where more people move to a line than there are prizes remaining, the people who are “fighting” for those prizes have a roll-off. One roll each and the highest roll wins the remaining the prize.

3 – Repeat it Again

Once you’ve given out prizes for that round, everyone head back to the table and roll together again. Move pieces, distribute prizes, and roll again until the game is over.

How the game ends

The game ends as soon as someone has rolled to the twelfth line and claimed the 12th day of Giftmas prize. As soon as that happens, everyone can finish out that round (no more rolling dice, just moving their pieces and getting prizes), then the game is over.

If there are multiple people that reach the end of the game at the same time, use the roll-off rule mentioned above to get the ultimate winner of the final prize.

You can do whatever you want with leftover prizes or keep them for another game!

Alternate Variations

If you’d prefer to have prizes for everyone along the entire path, you can definitely do that, it’s just not as competitive that way. You’d also need to provide more prizes, which means you likely will have not as high value prizes toward the end.

If you want to do that, I still recommend having the game end when someone reaches day 12, even if everyone hasn’t collected their prizes yet. Otherwise, there’s no real game – you could just hand out the prizes!

Prize ideas

I explained how the prize system works in this game above, so I won’t rehash that here. You can really use anything you want for prizes, just choose something that makes sense for your group. And make sure it’s things that are easy to buy in bulk since you’ll likely be buying things for a good number of people (Costco is great for this).

I’ve included recommendations for various price levels so they work for increasing prize values. These are also pretty universal so should work for most groups. And these prizes are assuming you don’t want to just use cash or gift cards, which are always a hit.

• $1-$3 level – Burt’s Bees chapstick, fidgets like these, packs of gum, Lotto tickets, candy, etc.
• $5 range – card games (a bunch of our favorite family card games are in this price range), gloves, socks, scalp massagers, fancy pens, Pokemon cards, etc.
• $10 range – movie tickets, golf balls, nice chocolates, actual games, etc.
• $20 range – beanies, flashlights, hand warmers, Sports team memorabilia, multitools, or even something like one of these white elephant gifts.

More Fun Christmas Games

Enter your first name and email address in the form below to get the printable free download PDF. You will receive a link to download the PDF to your email within minutes.

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The file will include:

1. One-page roll guide
2. Four to a page roll guide (for including on the table)
3. Number cutouts (1-12)
4. Use policy (everything is for personal use only)
5. XYZ