Best Christmas Games to Play With 3 People

Struggling to find fun games to play with three people? I remember one Christmas when it was just me and two cousins. We were looking for things to do and tried every game out there until we found some amazing games. Here is a list of the best games for three players that I personally enjoy and can vouch for, especially during the holiday season!

Naughty or Nice

This game is modeled after the Punch Board game and is fun for families with kids. In this game, the participants punch through a cup and pick out the piece of paper in it. The paper will contain a joke about why the said person was either naughty or nice. Each person has to read out what they picked so everyone can have a good laugh together.

Besides the strips, the cups may also contain prizes according to the kind of paper they picked. Those who picked a nice paper may get chocolates and candies. Those who picked a naughty paper may also get prizes, but you could make their prizes less appealing than the nice prizes.

What you need to set it up:

Core foam board(s)
Non-transparent disposable plastic cups
Glue
Colored tissue
Prizes for the naughty cups and prizes for the nice cups
Paper strips containing jokes about being naughty or nice.

The size of the boards, the number of cups, and the number of strips depend on the number of participants and the number of turns each participant will take. For instance, if there are 10 participants and each person has three turns, you will need 15 cups, 15 paper strips, and a core foam board(s) that can contain 15 cups.

How to Play the Game:

Get a core foam board that can stand vertically without support. You may use more than one core foam board if you want.
Label the foam board ‘Naughty or Nice.’
Glue the bottom of the disposable cups to the core foam board. With enough space on the board, you may get creative and glue the cups to form a special pattern.
Once you’ve glued the bottoms of all the cups to the board, randomly place the prizes and strips in each cup. Ensure nice paper strips and nice prizes go into the same cup while naughty paper strips and naughty prizes go into the same cup.
After placing the prizes and strips in all the cups, seal the cups with tissue paper. You may do this by laying tissue paper on each cup and gluing the ends of the tissue to the sides of the cup. You may also use rubber bands in place of glue.

Cards Against Humanity

Christmas is about bonding and laughter, and “Cards Against Humanity” delivers just that. The rules are easy to understand. It is a fun 3 people game that can turn conversations into hilarious scenarios. If you already have the game, check out this seasons greetings pack, which is a perfect addition for Christmas parties!

Here Is How to Play the Game:

Start by giving each player 11 white ‘answer’ cards. In every round, one player, called the ‘card Csar,’ draws a black ‘question’ card and reads it to everyone. Players then quickly pick a white card from their hand that they think best completes the sentence humorously.

For instance, if the black card says, “Listen, son. If you want to get involved with… I won’t stop you. Just steer clear of…” and you choose the white card, “The white half of Barack Obama. The Black half of Barack Obama.“ the sentence becomes “Listen, son. If you want to get involved with the white half of Barack Obama, I won’t stop you. Just steer clear of the Black half of Barack Obama”.

Players give their chosen white cards to the card Csar, who decides the funniest combination. The funniest answer wins the black card for that round. The game ends when players decide, and the one with the most black cards wins. If there’s a tie, a final round determines the winner based on who’s funniest.

Taco vs. Burrito

If you are looking for family-friendly 3 player games you should check out Taco vs. Burrito. You can have anyone of almost any age play this game.

The deck features two types of cards: Food Cards and Action Cards. The food cards give the players points. On the other hand, the action cards give the players some special privileges. Sometimes, the action cards may also deduct a player’s total points.

Game Rules:

At its simplest, the game goes like this:

Everyone gets dealt five cards each.
Each player plays their card.
The player whose food cards amass the highest points wins.

While it might seem easy, the action cards bring twists and turns into the game. The following are some of the action cards and what they do:

Hot Sauce Boss card – this doubles a player’s total score.

Tummy Ache card – this reduces a player’s total score.

Food Fight card – this makes everyone draw and flip a card from the draw pile. Then, the player that draws the food card with the highest value gets to keep any card from the drawn cards.

Order Envy card – The player with the Order Envy card is allowed to switch hands with any player. After doing this, the person to the left of the player with the Order Envy card plays next.

Health Inspector card – this compels a player to play all their cards at once.

Joking Hazard by Cyanide & Happiness

If you are having an adult-only Christmas get-together, you may find this game pretty amusing, creative, and entertaining. The game comes with 360-ready panel cards and ten customizable cards.

At its simplest, Joking Hazard is a game that involves creating a 3-panel comic with cards, and it needs at least 3 participants.

All the participants pick a card (a comic panel) from the deck.
Next, they choose a judging participant from among them. Then the game starts.
The first panel is drawn randomly from the remaining cards in the deck.
Next, the judging participant plays their own card (the card they chose in step 1) as the second panel.
Then, every other player plays their own card as the third panel.
After everyone plays their card, the judge looks through the 3-panel comic formed by each player’s card. Then, the judge picks the funniest one.

Note: This game is only for adults.

Christmas Movie Bingo

Playing Christmas movie bingo is pretty straightforward. You may not even have to get any special material to play the game. For the most part, you only need regular movie supplies – popcorn and the like.

Playing the game is easy:

Create bingo cards using these blank Bingo cards containing various references you will find in Christmas/Holiday movies. Make enough cards for everyone that will take part in the game. Also, ensure the contents of the cards are not too similar.
Hand a bingo card to each player.
Have a Christmas movie marathon with family and friends. While watching the movies, when players come across a reference in the movies that is on their cards, they should tick or mark it.
The first person to complete a row gets a prize.

Sock Guessing

Another fun family of three or more game is the sock-guessing game. It involves stuffing a number of thick socks with various items.

After stuffing them, the socks are passed around to each player to feel and guess the content of each sock. The players write their guesses down – of course, they are expected to keep their guesses hidden from other players. In the end, the person with the highest number of correct guesses wins.

If you want to make the game Christmas-themed, you may use items like baubles, candy canes, and other things related to Christmas.

To make things fun and competitive, you can have prizes for the winner, runner-up, and first runner-up. You may use as many socks as you deem fit for this game. But to ensure things are interesting, use at least ten socks.

Pin the Nose on the Reindeer

This Christmas game is a variant of the pin the tail on the donkey game. Instead of putting a tail on the picture of a donkey, the players have to put a nose on a reindeer. It is one game everyone in the family can take part in.

You can either buy this reusable Pin the Nose on the Reindeer game or print out an image/drawing of a reindeer without a nose and get enough noses for the players. The noses should be labeled with the corresponding player’s name on the forward side while tape or glue is attached to the backward side.

Playing the Game:

Hang the drawing/image of the reindeer on a wall.
Let the player pick the nose labeled with their name.
The player should then be blindfolded and spun around a few times.
After being spun, the player will walk toward the reindeer image and try to attach the nose to the correct spot. Of course, this should be done while still blindfolded.
The player that correctly attaches the nose or gets closest to the correct spot of the nose wins.

Oven Mitt Unwrapping Game

I played this game with my two children on Christmas last year, and we had so much fun. The idea behind this game is pretty interesting, and the game itself is pretty engaging. The Christmas gifts unwrapping game basically involves trying to unwrap a thoroughly wrapped gift while wearing oven mitts. You can play this game when opening Christmas Eve boxes or on Christmas Day.

What you need:

A pair of oven mitts
A die
A plate or flat object to roll the die on
A gift wrapped thoroughly (a gift wrapped in multiple gift wrappers)

This video shows a group of friends playing the Christmas Mitten Game.

Game Rules:

The youngest player picks a number between 1 and 6.
The die and plate are passed from player to player while they take turns rolling the die.
When someone finally gets the number the youngest player picked, that person wears the oven mitts and starts trying to open the thoroughly wrapped gift.
The person keeps unwrapping the gift until someone else hits that number.
Once someone else gets the number, this new person collects the oven mitts and takes over the unwrapping from the first person.
The game keeps going like this until someone completely unwraps the gift.
The person who successfully unwraps the gift wins the game.