Christmas is just around the corner! As you brace yourself for year-end reports and requirements, you’ll also need to prepare for your upcoming Christmas party—the biggest year-end celebration.
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, large gatherings are currently on hold. But this doesn’t mean you can’t celebrate a meaningful Christmas this year with your team. Just make sure you follow health and safety precautions.
Below we list fun virtual Christmas party ideas that you can try for your year-end festivities, and they’re perfect for both remote and hybrid teams.
Hold a Holiday-themed Scavenger Hunt
First on our list is a must-have at any party—a holiday scavenger hunt! Instead of making participants search for physical items during in-office celebrations, you can ask your team to search indoors and flash the object on their screen instead.
Set a timer and ask participants to send photos of holiday items on their list. Whoever completes their list first, wins the game!
Play Holiday Charades
‘Tis the season to be jolly, and what better way to break the ice than with an exciting round of holiday charades? Doing it online can even add a sense of thrill (and difficulty).
Enjoy a Christmas party filled with giggles and wild hand gestures as employees act out ideas and concepts from different yuletide-themed movies, songs, and traditions. But don’t forget to remind the person doing charades to mute their microphone to avoid unintentional clues from slipping through!
You can have the participants type their answers through chat or raise their hands to guess, whichever your team prefers best
Facilitate a Virtual Christmas Bingo
Start the festivities right with a virtual Christmas bingo game. The rules are simple: the first to fill in all the squares on their bingo card wins a prize. You can find bingo templates online and fill them with holiday prompts.
To make things more interesting, you can customize each one with descriptions to spark camaraderie among your team members. For example, you can include bingo categories like “wrote Christmas poems” or “volunteered at a shelter.”
Playing bingo adds an element of surprise because it encourages everyone to guess which of their co-workers fits the description. Who knows, you might find out that someone on your team still believes in Santa!
Conduct an Online Holiday Trivia Game
Love watching TV game shows? Channel that enthusiasm by organizing a virtual holiday trivia game for your company’s Christmas party.
Nominate a quiz master, split employees into teams, and let the virtual Christmas party games begin! Feel free to make a PowerPoint presentation or a quiz app online. Mix it up and add some fun facts and pop culture references into the mix to even out the playing ground. The team with the most points will receive a special prize!
Gather ‘Round for a Merry Movie Night
Want a more relaxed get-together? Try hosting a Christmas movie night with your team! This activity is perfect for small groups who prefer more laid-back celebrations.
Create a poll to ask for preferred dates and movie recommendations from your employees. When it’s time for film viewing, you can use an online app that lets everyone watch the movie in-sync while on a video call. To set the mood, encourage everyone to dress comfortably and bring their favorite snacks!
Schedule a Holiday-themed Photobombing Session
Photos are a great way to preserve unforgettable memories. So don’t let COVID-related restrictions hold you back and conduct a virtual photobombing session!
You won’t have to look far since video conferencing apps let people snap photos online. Just hit the screenshot button, and you can snap group photos even if you’re far away from each other.
Add a sense of holiday cheer with a Yuletide-themed photo booth. You could also make a custom Christmas video background for your virtual Christmas celebration. Encourage everyone to wear costumes, hats, and other props to make the shoot extra fun!
Hold a Virtual Award Banquet
Year-end celebrations are a great time to honor the accomplishments and contributions of your employees. During the Christmas program, dedicate time to showcase all types of achievements (both serious and humorous) throughout the year.
Conduct a survey so everyone can nominate and vote for people who best embody an award or role. If you’re unsure where to start, you can take inspiration from Hollywood award banquets and ask your team to fill in roles of an emcee, stage manager, sound technician, and DJ.
Add a unique flair to your awarding ceremony and come with fun titles like Best Dressed and Mission Impossible!
Organize a Virtual Talent Show
Maybe your employees have a talent hiding up their sleeves. Allow them to showcase their skills and hold your own version of America’s Got Talent!
Talents could range from hoop dancing to embroidery. And watching your colleagues serenade your team or share a spoken word piece is a lot more memorable than hiring a local performer.
Follow up the virtual talent show and create dedicated spaces in your hybrid office where your team can hone their skills further. For example, you can consider starting an online collage or creating a virtual gallery space where people on your team can share their work.
Spread the Joy with a Virtual Secret Santa
Christmas is the season of gift-giving, and no Christmas party is complete without a gift exchange. It’s a great activity because everyone receives gifts and gets to know each other better.
Start by randomly generating matches for the Secret Santa participants. You can use an online app or do it the old-fashioned way by asking people to pull names out of a virtual hat. Set a budget and shopping deadline, and ask everyone to write their wish list based on the rules.
Before the gift-giving event, ask everyone to mail the presents in advance or opt for virtual gifts such as online gift cards and coupons.
Let Your Virtual Year-end Celebrations Begin
Christmas is the perfect time to gather teams, spread cheer, and promote camaraderie among colleagues. If you want to end the year with a bang, you’ll need to prepare so that everyone has a blast during your virtual year-end celebrations.
If you need help organizing your virtual Christmas party and are unsure where to start, use Sprout Pulse. Our tool lets you distribute employee surveys so you can gauge the most preferred type of year-end celebration among your team members. If you want to learn more about how to promote engagement and camaraderie among your team, check out our blog page!
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