Materials
A semi-circle of chairs with one chair for each participant
Game play
The group sits in a semi-circle. “Christmas” sits on one end of the semi-circle. At the other end of the semi-circle sits the “scrooge.” All the seats in between belong to different Christmas symbols, such as star, manger, shepherd. etc. You can assign the names or allow youth to choose their own. (Use the items from the Christmas Bingo game for ideas for various Christmas symbols)
Once everyone has identified the Christmas symbol for their seat, the game begins. The person sitting in the “Christmas” chair begins the game by calling out “Christmas” and then another Christmas symbol in the group (e.g “Manger”). The person sitting in the “Manger” seat then calls out “Manger” and another Christmas symbol in the group, (e.g. “Elf”) and so it continues.
There are a couple of types of mistakes that will penalize participants:
1. You don’t notice your symbol has been called and delay too long
2. You call the same symbol that just immediately called you
3. You call out a Christmas symbol that was not used in the group
The Penalty
If someone makes a mistake, they have to swap places with the person next to them, moving down towards the “Scrooge”. They then take on the Christmas symbol of the seat they now occupy, and the person who moves up a place takes over their Christmas symbol. The aim is to move all the way up to take the place of “Christmas.” “Christmas” then starts the next round until someone else makes a mistake.
Variation
Instead of calling out the names of the Christmas symbols, have participants create an action. The wilder the various actions, the more fun!
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