• Prepare for Christmas with holiday games for the kids.christmas at home image by Robert Knight from Fotolia.com
  
  Christmas celebrations typically involve good food, fun decorations and plenty of gift giving. But without Christmas games, your children may end up feeling a bit of boredom watching the adults talk. Luckily, you have many games to choose from that require very little setup, but provoke lots of laughs and Christmas cheer from the little ones.
  
  

Ornament Hunt

• Get the kids to leave the room so that you can hide some Christmas tree ornaments around the house. Once you've hidden all of the ornaments, bring the kids back into the room. Give them each a basket to collect any ornaments they find. The kid who finds the most ornaments after all of them have been found wins the game.
  
  

Who's Santa?

• Pick one child out of the group to become Rudolph. Tell Rudolph to go to another room while you pick another child to play Santa. Get the group, including Santa, to form a circle. Bring Rudolph back and have him stand in the middle of the circle. Santa's job is to wink at other group members. Whenever someone receives a wink from Santa, she has to say "Ho! Ho! Ho!" and Rudolph has to figure out who's playing Santa by studying everyone's faces to see who winks and at what direction the Ho-Ho-Hoer's staring when she says her line. After Rudolph discovers Santa, the old Santa becomes the new Rudolph, and a new Santa is chosen.
  
  

Jinglin' Bells

• Prepare the game by placing a chair in the middle of the room and tying some small bells to the bottom of it. Pick one kid out of the group to play Santa. Sit Santa down on the chair and have the rest of the group form a circle around the chair. Without making a sound, pick one kid to become the thief. He has to walk over to Santa's chair and try to steal one bell under the chair without Santa hearing him. If Santa does hear him, he becomes the new Santa and sits in the chair in the middle of the circle. Play the game until all of the bells under the chair get stolen, and take turns letting other kids play Santa.
  
  

Christmas Chain Relay

• Divide the group into teams of two or more. Give each team some sheets of red and green construction paper, a pair of scissors and some tape. On the count of three, the kids begin creating a Christmas chain by cutting out strips of paper and taping them into a series of chains. The game ends after a set amount of time (about three minutes) has passed. Count the number of chains from each team. Whichever team has the most chains wins the game.