How do you host Christmas bingo for adults?

Bingo has a reputation as a children’s game or a fundraiser in a church basement, and grown-ups sometimes sit down to it expecting to be bored. Then the caller says “Tinsel” and adds that it was first made of real silver, and the table starts talking. Christmas bingo for adults works when the game gives people something to say between calls. Here is how to host it for an office, a church social, a senior center or the grown-up end of the family table.

What makes bingo a grown-up game

Three things turn bingo from a numbers drill into a party game for adults.

• Words the whole table knows. Candy cane, mistletoe, eggnog, Silent Night, snow globe, fruitcake. Every square reminds somebody of their own Christmas, and people say so out loud.
• A line after every call. One short fact, then the next word. The game sets the pace of the conversation instead of interrupting it.
• A grown-up look. Navy and gold, clean type, no cartoon clip art, so nobody at the office feels handed a coloring sheet.

Our Christmas Bingo for Adults is built on those three ideas: 75 Christmas words in six groups (decorations, treats, Santa, traditions, carols and winter), 100 cards in two sizes, and a Host Pack with a line for every word.

How to host it, step by step

1. Choose the length before you start: one line, two lines or a full card. Tell the room, so everyone knows when the game ends.
2. Hand out the cards, large print to anyone who wants them, classic to everyone else. Use cards 1 to N for N players, shuffled.
3. Give everyone something to mark with. Buttons, dried beans, pennies or a pencil all work.
4. Read your first words. The Host Pack has them ready: “No need to hurry: there is a fun fact with every word.”
5. Call each word in the ready call order and read its line. Tick it on the tick sheet as you go.
6. Check every BINGO against the tick sheet before the applause. Two at once? Both win. Play on for the next line if the room wants more.

For the nuts and bolts of calling to a big hall (microphones, how many cards to print, checking a win quickly), see our guide on how to call Christmas bingo.

A line to read after every word

The call sheet is what makes the game. A few lines, exactly as printed in the Host Pack:

• Tinsel: “Invented in Nuremberg around 1610 and originally made of real silver, shredded thin.”
• Jingle Bells: “First published in 1857 as One Horse Open Sleigh, and not one line of it mentions Christmas.”
• Earmuffs: “Invented in 1873 by Chester Greenwood, a fifteen-year-old from Farmington, Maine.”
• Snowflake: “Wilson Bentley of Vermont photographed more than five thousand snowflakes and never found two alike.”

Read the line once, slowly, then move on. If a table laughs or someone says “my grandmother had one of those,” let it breathe for a moment. That is the party happening.

Pick the length of the game

At an office lunch, one line fits between the meal and dessert. At a senior center afternoon, a full card fills the hour comfortably and nobody has to rush. There is no free square: every square is a word, so every card can win on the same call list.

Large print and a seated room

Every player sits for the whole game, which is why bingo suits a Christmas gathering for older adults so well. A few habits keep it easy for everyone:

• Offer large print to anyone, without asking why. Put both stacks on the table and let people choose.
• Buttons are easiest to see and to pick up at a senior center; the cards themselves say so.
• Know the race. A 4 x 4 line needs four calls and a 5 x 5 line five, so the first BINGO usually comes from a large print card. For an even race, play one set at a time.
• Put the words on a screen. The 77 TV slides show one word at a time, which helps anyone who hears the caller less clearly than they see a television.

For more ideas for an older crowd, see our guide to Christmas games for seniors and our page of games for seniors.

Office, church, senior center or family table

At the office

Keep it short and keep it light. One line before dessert, a second if the room asks for it. The words are everyday Christmas and winter words, so a colleague who doesn’t celebrate can still mark mittens, snowball and hot cocoa. More ideas for the workplace are on our office party games page.

At a church social

The word list includes Nativity Scene, Candlelight Service and Church Bells alongside the snowmen and gingerbread, and the call sheet has a line for each. Seat people at round tables, mix the ages, and let a teenager be the caller’s helper with the tick sheet. Our church games page has more for the fellowship hall.

At a senior center

Play a full card, use buttons, show the slides on the common-room TV, and leave room for stories after each line. Residents who prefer to watch can be the official checkers of every BINGO.

At the family table

Twenty players or fewer? Christmas Bingo Starter is the same game on a smaller scale: ten large print and ten classic cards, the same 75 words and the same call order. Let the grandchild who reads fastest be the caller.

Prizes that cost nothing

Grown-ups play for the fun of it, but a small reward makes the shout of BINGO sweeter. Some that cost nothing:

• First pick from the cookie plate
• The comfortable chair by the fire
• The honor of calling the next game
• A paper star taped to the winner’s name tag for the rest of the evening
• The last word in a friendly argument of the winner’s choosing

If you do want something to unwrap, a jar of homemade cocoa mix or a single ornament feels more festive than a gift card.

A small table and a big room on one call

Here is a trick for a party that spreads across two rooms. Christmas Bingo Starter uses the same call order as the full pack, and no Starter card shares a row, column or diagonal with any card of the full pack. One caller can run the main hall on the large pack and a corner table on the Starter cards, and nobody ends up holding the same line as anyone else.

You can find the full pack, Christmas Bingo for Adults, on Etsy as an instant download that prints on US Letter or A4 in black ink.

Pour the cocoa, set out the buttons, and read the first word slowly. For the rest of the season’s games, browse our Christmas party games.