Holiday activities · Friday, December 25, 2026
Christmas Games and Activities for Seniors
A December program for senior living communities and families: eight Christmas games made from cards, cookies and catalog pages, 25 trivia questions with answers, a one-hour party plan, and adjustments for residents with dementia. The activities center on the Christmases residents remember from the 1940s through the 1970s, and they leave room for neighbors who celebrate Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or nothing at all.
Before you plan
Christmas brings out some of the strongest memories residents have: Sears catalogs, train sets, tinsel, aluminum trees, Bing Crosby on the radio. It can also be the loneliest week of the year for someone who has lost a spouse or whose family lives far away. Not every resident is Christian, so ask before assuming, and fold Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and general winter traditions into the games so nobody sits on the sidelines. Keep the program about memories, music and making things, and give quieter residents a way to join without speaking. In memory care, a decorated room, familiar music and a cookie can do more than any game.
Eight Christmas games
1. Wish Book Shopping Independent
Print pages of toys and gifts from the 1950s and '60s: train sets, dolls, sleds, cap guns, record players, transistor radios. Hand each resident a page and an imaginary budget. Everyone circles what they would have wished for as a child, then what they'd have bought for their own kids. Go around and share. The conversation will turn to the Sears Wish Book, the store catalog everyone pored over, and to the gifts residents actually found under the tree.
2. Christmas Card Assembly Line Supported
Set up an assembly line of folded blank cards, holiday stickers, ribbon, rubber stamps and pre-cut paper trees. Each resident does one step: stamping, sticking, writing a short greeting, or tucking cards into envelopes. Send the finished cards to staff families, a children's hospital, a veterans' home, or residents' own grandchildren. Shaky hands can choose the stickers and stamps; confident writers can sign. Make a few winter-themed cards with no Christmas imagery for residents of other faiths.
3. Tabletop Tree Trimming Supported
Place a small artificial tree on a table residents can reach from their chairs. Pass around a basket of unbreakable ornaments, bows, wooden beads and short garland. Each person picks an ornament, describes it, and places it on the tree or tells a helper where it should go. Ask about the ornaments they hung as children, who put on the star, and whether their family preferred tinsel strand by strand or thrown on by the handful.
4. Holiday Scent Guessing Sensory
Fill small jars with winter scents: a pine sprig, a peppermint candy, an orange studded with cloves, gingerbread spice, cocoa powder and a cinnamon stick. Cover them so residents smell without seeing. Pass one jar at a time; each person guesses, then the jar is opened and passed again. Smell reaches memory faster than any picture, so expect stories about kitchens, church, and the department store at Christmastime. There are no wrong guesses in this game.
5. Carol Request Round Everyone
Hand out large-print sheets with only the titles of familiar carols and holiday songs, such as Silent Night, Jingle Bells, White Christmas, O Holy Night and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Each resident takes a turn choosing one. Play a recording and let the room sing along or simply listen. Ask the requester why they picked it. Include a winter song with no religious content, such as Winter Wonderland, and invite residents who celebrate Hanukkah to request one of their own songs.
6. Where Were You at Christmas? Independent
Hang a large U.S. map on the wall. Ask each resident where they spent the Christmases or holiday seasons of their childhood, and mark the town with a star sticker and their name. Ask what the weather was like, what the town did to decorate, and what made the holiday special there. Residents who grew up abroad get a star in the margin and a chance to describe a different tradition. The finished map shows how far the room has come.
7. Cookie Decorating Supported
Bake or buy plain sugar cookies in simple shapes like stars, trees and bells. Set out tubes of icing, sprinkles and colored sugar on trays. Residents decorate a few each, then the cookies go on a platter for the party or for staff. Treat it as a real kitchen job, not a craft for children: ask who made cut-out cookies every year and what their secret was. Check diets and offer sugar-free icing where needed.
8. Seated Holiday Charades Everyone
Write simple holiday actions on cards: wrapping a present, hanging a stocking, sledding down a hill, stirring cookie dough, shoveling snow, lighting a candle, untangling lights. A volunteer, staff or resident, acts one out while seated, and the room guesses. Residents who don't want to act can draw the card and whisper it to a staff member who performs it. Keep the actions familiar and the mood light; the untangling-lights card always gets a laugh.
25 Christmas trivia questions
Read them aloud. Answers sit under each question; the printable has them in large print.
- Who narrated the 1966 cartoon 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas!'?Boris Karloff
- Which song did Bing Crosby record in 1943 that became a favorite of troops overseas?I'll Be Home for Christmas
- In 'It's a Wonderful Life,' what does Clarence the angel earn by helping George?His wings
- In what town does George Bailey live in 'It's a Wonderful Life'?Bedford Falls
- Which actor won an Oscar for playing Kris Kringle in 'Miracle on 34th Street' (1947)?Edmund Gwenn
- Who had a hit with 'Blue Christmas' on his 1957 Christmas album?Elvis Presley
- Who played Mary, George Bailey's wife, in 'It's a Wonderful Life'?Donna Reed
- Which Chicago department store was famous for the giant Christmas tree in its Walnut Room?Marshall Field's
- What lit up the shiny aluminum Christmas trees popular around 1960?A rotating color wheel
- Which comedian narrated the 1969 TV special 'Frosty the Snowman'?Jimmy Durante
- In the 1964 TV special 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,' what does Hermey the elf want to be?A dentist
- Which Charles Dickens character grumbles 'Bah! Humbug!' at Christmas?Ebenezer Scrooge
- What is the name of Bob Cratchit's small, sick son in 'A Christmas Carol'?Tiny Tim
- What did children worry they'd find in their stocking if they had been naughty?A lump of coal
- Which singer's 1970 song 'Feliz Navidad' became a bilingual Christmas standard?José Feliciano
- Which toy building logs were invented by architect Frank Lloyd Wright's son John?Lincoln Logs
- How many reindeer are named in the poem 'A Visit from St. Nicholas'?Eight
- What dense holiday cake packed with candied fruit and nuts is the butt of many jokes?Fruitcake
- What snack was strung on thread with cranberries to make a garland for the tree?Popcorn
- Hanukkah celebrates the rededication of the Temple in which city?Jerusalem
- What were the Christmas lights with glass tubes of bubbling liquid, popular in the late 1940s, called?Bubble lights
- Whose 1946 recording of 'The Christmas Song' became a holiday standard?Nat King Cole
- In 'A Christmas Story,' what does Ralphie want more than anything?A Red Ryder BB gun
- The greeting-card company Hallmark was founded in which city in 1910?Kansas City, Missouri
- Which 1968 mission's astronauts read from the Book of Genesis on Christmas Eve while orbiting the moon?Apollo 8
A one-hour Christmas party plan
| 0–5 min | Welcome each resident by name as they arrive. Tables have red and green cloths, LED candles and the cookies decorated earlier. Holiday records play softly. |
|---|---|
| 5–15 min | Where Were You at Christmas? Mark the map with stars and share a few of the stories behind them. |
| 15–25 min | Christmas trivia: read 10 to 12 questions from this page and let tables answer together. |
| 25–35 min | Holiday Scent Guessing, passing one jar at a time around each table. |
| 35–45 min | Refreshments: cookies, cocoa or punch, following each resident's diet. Staff sit and visit. |
| 45–55 min | Carol Request Round, with large-print title sheets and a winter song for residents who don't celebrate Christmas. |
| 55–60 min | Thank everyone, hand out the cards from the assembly line, and help residents back to their rooms. |
About 60 minutes, start to finish.
In memory care
- Decorate gradually across December rather than all at once, so the room changes a little at a time instead of looking unfamiliar overnight.
- Use recordings residents knew in their twenties and thirties, like Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole and Perry Como, at a comfortable volume, without blinking lights or animated figures that move suddenly.
- Choose unbreakable ornaments and nothing that looks like candy but isn't. Keep small decorations out of reach of residents who put objects in their mouths.
- Watch for grief. A resident looking for a spouse or parent at Christmas is not confused about the holiday; sit with the feeling and talk about that person rather than correcting.
- Keep visits and parties in the early afternoon and limit crowds to a size the resident tolerates. A quiet corner with one familiar visitor can be the best gift.
Things to talk about
- Tell me about the Christmas morning you remember best.
- What was the best gift you ever received as a child?
- Tell me about the decorations in the house you grew up in.
- What did your family eat on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day?
- Tell me about a holiday tradition your family kept every year, whatever you celebrated.
- What gift did you most enjoy giving to someone else?
- Tell me about a department store, church or town square you visited in December.
- What was winter like where you grew up?
The Christmas pack, free and in large print
All 25 trivia questions with answers, the eight games, the party plan and the talk-about questions, ready to print. Plus one useful email a month. Unsubscribe anytime.
