School
Christmas Gift Exchange Games
Many public schools don't allow gift
exchanges during the Christmas season, but some do and certainly
many private schools do. Many fun games can be created to make
the gift exchange really fun and festive for kids.
There are several activities you can impose to make the gift
buying interesting. For example, you can declare that one of the
rules of the gift exchange is that gifts must be handmade or put
together in some way and not purchased. You can take this a step
further by declaring that the gifts feature the school's colors
in abundance. Perhaps they might also somehow incorporate the
school's mascot.
Definitely in a gift exchange with children, there should be a
low dollar limit on the gifts (such at $5).
But once the gifts are ready, there are many fun exchange
activities and games that can be used to make this even fun and
memorable for the kids.
You can use a "white elephant" gift exchange method; here the
kids draw a number and choose their gift from the pile of gifts
in order by the number they drew. They can exchange their gift
for a different one if they choose. A gift can only be "stolen"
three times and the person who drew the first gift can "steal" a
gift at the end of the gift exchange if they like. Kids always
get a kick out of the "stealing" aspect of the white elephant
gift exchange.
Children enjoy buying gifts for other people, so having them
draw names is an excellent activity for a gift exchange. To add
a twist, make the gift activity interesting by telling the
children they can't tell their recipient they are buying for
them. Then create a fun activity during the exchange itself to
play up the "mystery" element of the gift exchange.
In the mystery scenario, you can have each child open their
gift, then try and figure out who it is from. If the children
were asked to make a gift, this can be particularly fun, as some
children might have drawing skills, or woodworking skills which
might make it easier or harder for the other children to decide
who have them a gift.
As the children open the gifts, have them guess who the gift is
from. If they are wrong, they have to do a little dance or silly
physical act before making another guess. This repeats until
they guess the right giver of the gift they have been given.
Another fun activity for gift giving among children in a
classroom is to have each child make a game piece for an unknown
game board. Everyone brings a handcrafted game piece (there can
be rules as to its size, for example, no larger than 2 inches
high), to play with on the communal game board.
The "game board" can be nothing more than a large rug that's
been fashioned into some sort of game, ideally a
Christmas-themed game. Always popular is "get Santa back to the
North Pole" played much like Chutes and Ladders or Candyland.
Since most children know how to play these games, the learning
curve is small and at the Christmas party, they can get to
playing right away. To keep with the gift exchange idea, each
child can be asked to bring their handcrafted game piece wrapped
and the pieces can be exchanged as gifts before everyone plays
on the big game board.