PARTY GAMES · PICTIONARY
55 Christmas pictionary words for the family game
PUBLISHED AUG 3 · 2026 DATA REFRESHED AT EACH BUILD
By the PlaySpinWheel editorial team
Christmas pictionary words work because December has done the hard part already: every shape is one everybody in the room has seen a thousand times this month. A stocking, a wonky homemade tree, an ugly Christmas sweater. Nobody needs to be good at drawing when the whole family already knows what they are looking at.
Here are 55 of them in five themed sets: decorations and characters, food and drink, snow and traditions, the funny December chaos set, and the films and songs. Every one is safe for a mixed-age room, because that is the room this game is played in.
Which Christmas pictionary words work best?
The ones the room has physically handled in the last three weeks. That is the whole selection rule, and it is why Christmas is the single easiest theme to run: a bauble, a cracker, a roll of wrapping paper. There is no cultural gap to bridge, no film anyone has to have seen, and a five-year-old and a grandparent are equally likely to get it.
What to avoid is the same as any other list, with one December addition: skip anything religious that only half the room shares, unless you know the room. A nativity scene is on this list because it is a famous shape, but a family game is not the place to test whose traditions everyone knows.
Christmas words for pictionary: decorations and characters
The safest 20 on the page and the ones to open with. Every single one is a shape sitting somewhere in the house right now, which means the first round is guessed before the drawer has finished:
- Santa Claus
- Reindeer
- Elf
- Snowman
- Angel
- Christmas tree
- Star on top of the tree
- Tinsel
- Bauble
- Fairy lights
- Stocking
- Wreath
- Mistletoe
- Snow globe
- Nutcracker
- Advent calendar
- Nativity scene
- Sleigh
- Chimney
- Present with a bow
Christmas pictionary words: food and the dinner table
Ten words for the part of the day everyone actually cares about. Brussels sprouts are on the list on purpose, because whichever way the room feels about them, the drawing gets a reaction:
- Candy cane
- Gingerbread man
- Gingerbread house
- Christmas pudding
- Roast turkey
- Mince pie
- Hot chocolate
- Chocolate coins
- Roast potatoes
- Brussels sprouts
Christmas pictionary words: snow and traditions
Outdoor December, plus the traditions with a shape. These 10 draw big, which makes them the right choice when the game has moved to a whiteboard or somebody is drawing on a window:
- Ice skating
- Sledding
- Snowball fight
- Snow angel
- Icicles on a roof
- A house covered in lights
- Carol singers
- Church bell
- Christmas card
- Wrapping paper
Funny Christmas pictionary words: the December chaos set
The set that wins the evening. These are not objects, they are the small annual disasters everybody recognizes: untangling fairy lights, a queue at the post office, a cat in the Christmas tree. Adults find them funnier than children do, which makes them the right pile to bring out after the youngest have gone up:
- Untangling fairy lights
- Wrapping a present badly
- Falling asleep after dinner
- Regifting
- Last-minute shopping
- A queue at the post office
- The awkward family photo
- An ugly Christmas sweater
- A wonky homemade tree
- A cat in the Christmas tree
Christmas pictionary words: films, songs and stories
Five titles that a general family crowd will actually recognize, each with a shape the drawer can reach without writing a letter. Give these ninety seconds rather than sixty, since a title has to be built in parts:
- Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
- Frosty the Snowman
- The Grinch
- The Nutcracker
- A Christmas Carol
Printable Christmas pictionary words
A printed deck matters more at Christmas than at any other time of year, because the room is bigger, the ages are wider, and half the people playing do not want to look at a phone on Christmas Day. Copy the five sets above into a document, print on card stock, and cut. Keep the chaos set in its own pile so you can bring it out at the right moment.
One trick worth the extra minute: print the decorations set on green card and the chaos set on red. It looks deliberate on the table and it means you can hand a six-year-old an easy word without anybody noticing you chose it.
Is there a Christmas pictionary word generator?
Yes. Select Christmas in the category picker on the pictionary generator and every card dealt comes from exactly these 55 words. The card lands face down, so you can pass the phone across a full dinner table without the person next to you reading it over your shoulder, which at Christmas is not a hypothetical.
Pick Christmas in the category picker and the deck is festive only:
Deal a Christmas word →How do you run Christmas pictionary with the whole family?
Mixed ages is the whole challenge, and it is solved by team composition rather than by easier words. Put one adult and one child on each team and let them draw together: the child draws, the adult adds the one line that makes it readable, and the round works for both of them. Nobody sits out, and the six-year-old gets the credit.
- Play after the meal, not before. Before, half the room is cooking and the game gets abandoned mid-round.
- Keep the clock at sixty seconds and the teams at three or four, so nobody waits more than a few minutes for a turn.
- Draw big. A dinner table means people are looking at the page sideways and upside down.
- Let the chaos set out last. It is the funniest pile and it is the one that keeps people at the table after the point where somebody usually suggests television.
Where are the other Christmas game lists?
For the acting version of the same evening, there are 50 Christmas charades ideas written for mixed-age rooms. Away from the season, the main pictionary words page has 345 words across nine categories, and the hard pictionary words list is what to reach for when the family turns out to be far too good at this.
Fair questions
- What are good Christmas pictionary words?
- Things the room has physically handled in the last three weeks: a bauble, a stocking, a cracker, wrapping paper, a candy cane. There is no cultural gap to bridge, which is why a five-year-old and a grandparent guess them equally fast.
- What are funny Christmas pictionary words?
- The annual small disasters rather than the objects: untangling fairy lights, a queue at the post office, an ugly Christmas sweater, a cat in the Christmas tree. Adults find them much funnier than children do, so save that pile for later in the evening.
- Is there a Christmas pictionary word generator?
- Yes. Choose Christmas in the category picker on this site's pictionary generator and every card comes from these 55 words. Cards land face down, so passing the phone across a crowded table does not spoil the round.
- How do you play Christmas pictionary with a mixed-age family?
- Put the youngest player first, before anyone has set a standard to be embarrassed by, and pair each child with an adult so nobody is stranded on their turn. Two pens per team saves the handover, and seating everyone on one side of the table means nobody is reading the drawing sideways.
- Can you print these Christmas pictionary words?
- Yes, all five sets are written one idea per line so they paste into a three-column document and cut into 55 cards. Card stock rather than paper, and printing the easy set and the funny set on different colors lets you hand out the right one without anybody noticing.
- How many Christmas pictionary words do you need?
- About 40 for an hour with six players, so these 55 cover a full family session with room to pass. A bigger room gets through them faster, so drop the round to 30 seconds once there are more than ten people playing.