• Dividing a large group up into teams is a great way to encourage friendly rivalry for games.tag rugby image by Alison Bowden from Fotolia.com
  
  Whether you’re throwing a large Christmas party, or simply trying to entertain a group of kids at your annual Thanksgiving feast, holiday-themed games are a great way to keep everyone busy. You can split up the teams by age, gender, family or through names picked out of a hat. However you do it, you’re sure to have a good humored rivalry on your hands to keep the festivities going.
  
  

Festive Scavenger Hunt

• Gather a variety of holiday-themed items and hide them around the house and yard. This may include candy canes and mistletoe for Christmas, plastic skulls and spiders for Halloween, or shamrocks and gold coins for St. Patrick’s Day. Explain that mischievous holiday characters such as elves, ghouls or leprechauns have been hiding these important trinkets. Give each team a list of the things they must find and a bag to collect them in. Set the timer and send them off. At the end of the allotted time, the team with the most items on the list wins. If you’re playing with adults who have reliable transportation, you can expand the hunt beyond your home and ask for pictures in lieu of actual items. In this version of the game, you might include things like “a store display with four or more reindeer,” “a baby in an Easter dress” or “holiday candy on sale” on your list and have the players snap shots of these sights with their cell phones or a digital camera.
  
  

Holiday Grinches

• Begin this game by dividing the players into two teams, standing on opposite sides of a dividing line in the middle of the room. Set a small hourglass or other timer in the center. Flip a coin to determine who begins, then start the clock. When it is your team’s turn, everyone on the team must keep a straight face and remain as stoic and unmoved as possible, just like a holiday Grinch. Meanwhile, the players on the other side will laugh, make faces and do anything they can to get their opponents to crack a smile. Anyone who smiles or laughs while she's on the Grinch side must move over to join the other team. Switch roles each time the hourglass is out or the timer is up and continue until one team has won everyone, or most everyone, over to their side.
  
  

Ghost Hunt

• This game is a combination of hide and seek and tag, and is ideal for children with lots of energy to burn. One team plays the ghosts while the other team is the ghost hunters. The ghosts must hide from the hunters at all costs. Once they’re found and tagged, they must report to a designated containment area. Ghosts in the containment area can be rescued by other ghosts if a player on their team can make it to the containment area untouched and tag out one or more of his teammates. Once tagged out, the ghosts must scatter and try to hide again. The game continues until all the ghosts have been caught at once, or until its time for the holiday dinner or another event.