Christmas games for kids: seven games for the long days off
13 oktober 2026 · Bijgewerkt 5 oktober 2026
The Christmas holidays are long. After the presents and the food come days when it gets dark early outside and the children are hanging around the table. On an afternoon like that, you are looking for Christmas games for kids that last longer than one round, and that grandma and grandpa will enjoy too.
Below are seven games we would love to see under the tree. Almost all of them are boxes that fill a whole afternoon. We are leaving out the little games that fit in a Sinterklaas shoe, apart from one: a game of Bandido only takes fifteen minutes, and because you play together, you will want to go again straight away. They are sorted by age, from 6 to 10 and up, so you can quickly see what suits your child.
And because nobody wants a crying child at the table on Christmas Day, we also looked at how bad losing feels. Two of these games are fully cooperative, and in a few others luck keeps the gap so small that nobody remembers it for long.
Quick pick by age
- Ages 6+: Magical Athlete (a silly race with a die) and Bandido (stopping a crook together)
- Ages 7+: Mountain Goats Legacy (a story that continues over ten games)
- Ages 8+: Wilmot's Warehouse (playing together), Santorini 2nd Edition (building towers) and Project L (puzzling with pieces)
- Ages 10+: Harmonies (building a landscape full of animals)
Magical Athlete: ages 6+, a race full of nonsense
An egg, a banana and a rocket scientist line up at the start. Who wins? Nobody knows, and that is exactly where the fun of Magical Athlete lies. At the start you choose four racers, and each racer has their own power that bends the rules a little. Then come four races. For each race you secretly choose which racer to enter, and then everyone takes turns rolling the die.
Six-year-olds get it straight away: roll, move, laugh. Meanwhile, parents and grandparents puzzle over which racer suits which race best. Only the first two across the finish line score points, and in the later races there are more points. So if you lose the first race, you can still make up for everything. Up to six players can join in and a game takes about half an hour.
If your child cannot read well yet, sit next to them for a while: you need to know the racers’ powers, and reading them out loud helps.
Bandido: ages 6+, stopping the crook together
Bandido is in prison and trying to escape yet again, through a tunnel leading out of his cell. You have to stop him together. Taking turns, you add a card with passages to it, lengthways or sideways. Some cards are dead ends, others make the tunnel go further. Once all the tunnels are closed off, Bandido is stuck and you have won.
Because everyone is on the same team, nobody loses to anyone else. If things go wrong, the crook escapes and you simply start again. At ten to fifteen minutes per game, that is quickly done. Talking it over is allowed, and a six-year-old often spots before you do where a tunnel is still open.
Martin Nedergaard Andersen came up with it. You play it with one to four players, so also on your own on a quiet morning, and the rules are included in Dutch, among other languages.
Mountain Goats Legacy: ages 7+, one story for the whole holiday
In this game, goats climb up mountains. You roll four dice and split them into groups that add up to the number of a mountain. Each group moves a goat one step higher. At the top you take a points card, but only one goat fits on the summit. If another one arrives, your goat slides back down.
What makes it special is that the game carries on where you left off. A storybook contains ten chapters, and each chapter adds new rules, powers and obstacles. Two weeks of Christmas holidays is about the right length to play through the campaign. You do not have to tear up or stick anything, so afterwards you can simply start again.
Please note: this is an English-language edition, and the storybook is in English too. With a parent reading aloud, that is no problem for a seven-year-old.
Wilmot's Warehouse: ages 8+, win together or lose together
This is the game for families where a lost game quickly ends in tears. In Wilmot's Warehouse you do not play against each other. Together you run a warehouse full of strange items. Each tile has an odd picture on it, and you place it face down in the warehouse. To remember where everything is, you make up a name or a little story for it together. “That blue squiggle is Uncle Henk’s snake.”
It goes on like this for five working days. From Tuesday onwards, an extra rule is added each day, for example that you may only communicate with gestures. At the end, all the orders come in at once. Then you have five minutes to find everything again, and every mistake costs time.
The little stories are the best part. Children often come up with the craziest names, and those are exactly the ones everyone remembers. Grandpa does not need to know anything about games to join in. Two to six players can take part, and this is a Dutch edition.
Santorini 2nd Edition: ages 8+, building and climbing
White towers with blue domes: on the table, Santorini looks like a holiday photo. The rules fit on the back of a Christmas card. You have two builders. On your turn you move one builder one step, and then you build a level next to it. The first to stand on the third level wins.
After two turns you can already see your child thinking. Do I build that tower higher, or does that help the other player? Putting a dome on a tower makes it unusable for everyone.
This second edition includes 32 god cards. Each god gives you a special power that changes the basic rules a little. The text on these cards is in English. So start without the gods first, and add them once the basics are clear.
Project L: ages 8+, puzzling against each other
Anyone who loves building with blocks will be hooked on Project L straight away. You start with two small pieces shaped like Tetris blocks. You use them to fill puzzle cards. A completed puzzle earns you points, or a new, bigger piece. That way your supply grows and you can take on harder and harder puzzles.
You do three things per turn, which keeps it manageable for a child. Older players quickly see there is more to it: when do you trade a piece in for a bigger one? A game takes twenty to forty minutes. And if everyone has fallen asleep on the sofa after Christmas dinner, you can also play it on your own.
Harmonies: ages 10+, a landscape full of animals
For the oldest children, Harmonies is a step towards ‘real’ board games without getting heavy. Each time you take three coloured discs and place them on your own board. Stack them and you create mountains, trees and houses. Next to them you lay fields and rivers.
Then come the animals. Each animal card shows a small pattern, and as soon as your landscape has that pattern, you place an animal on it. Children often find that the best moment of the game. For the grown-ups at the table it is a tactical puzzle, and on BoardGameGeek Harmonies is in the top ten family games.
The edition is in English, but there is hardly any text on the board and cards. You can play it with one to four players.
Prefer something small for the Sinterklaas shoe?
These seven games are meant for the long days around Christmas. If you are looking for something smaller for Sinterklaas evening, take a look at our Sinterklaas games for kids. If there are adults at the Christmas table who rarely play, our Christmas games for the whole family will help you out. And you will find everything we recommend for the festive season among the Christmas games in the shop.