Christmas party games for work: 30 festive photo challenges for your team
By the Mission Memories team · Updated
The short answer
The best Christmas party games for work need no one to run them, include everyone and fit around dinner and dancing. A Christmas photo scavenger hunt does that: colleagues join on their phones with a code, complete festive challenges like "recreate a Christmas card photo with your team", and compete on a live leaderboard. With Mission Memories it's free for 5 people and £19.99 for up to 120.
Why a photo game works at the office Christmas party
- Nobody has to host it. Once the code is shared, the game runs itself.
- It mixes teams that only see each other once a year.
- It fits around the meal, the speeches and the dancing.
- Everyone gets the photos, not just whoever posted to the group chat.
Festive icebreakers
- Selfie with someone from another team in a Christmas hat
- Find someone with the same favourite Christmas film
- Photo with the best Christmas jumper in the room
- Get three departments in one festive photo
- Photo with someone who's working over Christmas
- Selfie with this year's newest starter
Team and table challenges
- Recreate a Christmas card photo with your team
- Get your table wearing their cracker hats
- Recreate a famous Christmas film scene
- Build a human Christmas tree with your table
- Film your team singing one line of a Christmas song
- Photo of your table's best cracker joke (with the reactions)
During dinner and speeches
- Catch the biggest laugh during the speeches
- Photo of the boss in festive mode
- Film a 10-second toast to the team's year
- Photograph the best-dressed table
- Snap the moment the pudding arrives
- Get a photo with the venue staff
Dance floor challenges
- Film the best dance move of the night
- Get a Christmas conga line on camera
- Snap the first person on the dance floor
- Film a group singalong to a Christmas classic
- Photo of the most dramatic dance-floor dip
- Snap the last people standing
Creative and work-themed challenges
- Sum up the company's year in one photo
- Recreate your team's biggest win of the year
- Make a Christmas advert for your product
- Photo of the best Secret Santa present
- Wrap a colleague in tinsel (with permission)
- Get a photo that looks like the company's Christmas card
How to set it up in ten minutes
- Pick 12–20 challenges from this list.
- Create the event in Mission Memories and add a password.
- Add the join link to the party invite, and print the QR code for each table.
- Announce it at the start and close the leaderboard before the dancing really gets going.
- Award prizes: an extra day off, a hamper or first pick at Secret Santa.
Keeping it fun for everyone
- Avoid challenges that involve drinking or that single people out.
- Make it optional. Plenty of people will happily just watch the leaderboard.
- Remove any photo someone asks you to, and remind people photos are shared with colleagues.
Free for up to 5 people. Bigger parties are one price for the event: £4.99 for 40, £19.99 for 120 or £49.99 for 300. Create a free event.
Frequently asked questions
What are good Christmas party games for work?
Games that include everyone, need no one to run them and fit around dinner and dancing. A Christmas photo scavenger hunt, Secret Santa and a short quiz are popular. A photo game is the easiest to run for big groups because it runs itself on everyone's phones.
How do you run a photo scavenger hunt at a Christmas party?
Pick 12–20 festive challenges, create an event in a photo game app like Mission Memories, share the join code on the invite or tables, and announce the winner before the dancing starts.
What's a good Christmas party game for a large company?
A photo mission game scales to 300 people in one event on Mission Memories, with a single live leaderboard, for £49.99.
Run it with Mission Memories
Free for 5 guests. Guests join with your code from their phone's browser, no app needed.