The pass and unwrap Christmas gift game is a group game or holiday party game that’s a great alternative to traditional White Elephant gift exchange games.
It’s also an eco-friendly alternative to the Saran Wrap ball game, which is a popular holiday game!
How To Play The Pass and Unwrap Christmas Game
The Christmas unwrap the gift game is like a funny holiday hot potato Christmas game or Christmas mystery box game.
If you’re tired of the traditional White Elephant game / Bad Santa game, Left Right Christmas story game, or if you need group games for holiday parties, add this as your new holiday tradition.
It’s a hilarious holiday activity for all ages (even teen party games!) and fun for a family Christmas Eve idea.
What is the Christmas game with wrapping paper?
The pass the present game is also a more ecofriendly alternative to plastic wrap ball game (aka: Christmas unwrap ball game) and a creative take on other gift swap game ideas.
There are smaller boxes wrapped inside bigger boxes and party guests take turns trying to unwrap the boxes and collect the loose prizes inside each box until the next guest rolls doubles. Then, the wrapped presents are passed to the next player
Pass And Unwrap Christmas Gift Game Supplies
To Make and Play the Christmas Wrapped Gift Game, You’ll Need These Game Supplies:
• Boxes of varying sizes, small to large that fit inside each other to make one big box
• Different Christmas wrapping paper (or plain wrapping paper that you can recycle)
• Christmas ribbons
• Tape
• Various Christmas candy and candy canes
• Gifts, gag gifts, trinkets, and prizes to go in the boxes
• Dice
• Pie tin or paper plate (to roll the dice in during game play)
Creating The Pass The Present Unwrap Present Game Boxes
How To Make The Unwrapping Present Game
Putting together the unwrapping gift game is simple and involves placing gifts in boxes, wrapping them, and then placing the wrapped gift in a bigger box with some loose trinket prizes.
The boxes should fit inside of each other.
IMPORTANT GAME TIP: Test that your boxes fit inside each other before you start wrapping game gifts and putting the game together.
Think of it this way: You’re putting a wrapped gift inside a box, wrapping that box, putting the second wrapped gift inside a third box, etc. until you end with one big wrapped box (with a bunch of wrapped gifts inside).
GAME SETUP OVERVIEW
It may seem confusing at first, but the it’s really just wrapping a gift box, putting it inside a bigger box, wrapping that box, then putting that one inside an even bigger box, etc.
Game wrapping and setup looks like this:
- WRAPPED BOX 1 PLACED INTO BOX 2, ALSO WITH UNWRAPPED TRINKET PRIZES LOOSE IN THE BOX >
- WRAPPED BOX 2 INTO BOX 3 WITH AN UNWRAPPED GIFT OR TRINKET PRIZES >
- WRAPPED BOX 3 INTO BOX 4 WITH SOME LOOSE TRINKET PRIZES TOO
- CONTINUE THIS PROCESS – what you’re doing is putting a box inside another box inside another box, etc. You can use as many boxes and prize gifts as you want! When making the game, you will start with the smallest box (which is the best prize, like a gift card or cash) and end with the largest box. The smallest box is the last box to be unwrapped during the game.
GAME TIP: You want to make it a little difficult to unwrap the boxes and open the gifts, especially if you are playing this as a teen game or adult game. You can do this by adding more tape, using packing tape, and tying with ribbons.
Steps To Creating The Box Game
1. Setting Up: Plan your prizes and boxes.
The smallest box will hold the best prize. (Think: money, gift card, tickets to an event, etc.)
Match your prizes with boxes and then test that the boxes all fit inside each other.
The last box you wrap when setting up the game will be the biggest box (and will actually be the first box party players unwrap).
2. Start with the smallest box. (BOX 1)
We always use a box the size of a gift card – this is the PRIZE BOX.
This is the last box to be opened and will be the best prizes.
We usually do a gift card and cash and/or lottery ticket.
(That seems to get everyone excited.)
Place the best gifts in this small prize box and wrap it.
Then, place the PRIZE BOX into BOX 1, along with some loose trinkets (like coins, dollar bills, candy, etc.).
Remember, when wrapping the gifts you want to make it challenging to open the gift (or hard to unwrap), so be sure to use lots of tape and a good quality (thicker) recyclable gift paper.
GAME TIP: MAKE ALL OF YOUR WRAPPED BOXES HARD TO UNWRAP BUT NOT IMPOSSIBLE (or people will just get frustrated and lose interest in the game).
3. Then, wrap the box that is the next size up. (BOX 2)
Place the wrapped box 1 into this box (BOX 2).
Also place some other loose items (unwrapped prizes) in BOX 2.
I like to throw random Christmas candy, coins, small gifts, gag gifts, mini toys (like fidget toys), socks, and even dollar bills randomly into boxes as I’m wrapping. That way, if someone doesn’t get the gift opened, they can still keep the trinket prizes.
You can also put another prize box (more than one wrapped gift box) in here or just leave it with one smaller box in it.
Remember, though, you want people to get excited and keep them motivated to keep going, so the more prizes, the more fun.
4. Next, wrap box that is the next size up. (BOX 3, the boxes are getting bigger)
Place the wrapped BOX 2 along with an unwrapped trinkets (like Christmas socks or a fidget toy, candy, etc.) into BOX 3.
Then, wrap BOX 3.
When you place BOX 3 into BOX 4, also throw some trinket prizes in there with unwrapped gifts or trinkets.
You will continue this process for all the boxes in the Christmas gift passing game.
5. Wrapping the last gift box.
Repeat the wrapping process (described in previous steps) until the last wrapped box is the biggest box (and now filled with all the other wrapped boxes).
This last box will be the first layer opened, so make sure that it’s difficult to unwrap by using lots of tape, thick wrapping paper, and ribbons tied tight.
GAME SETUP TIP: If you have a large group of players, you may want to have more than four boxes so that everyone has a turn. Or, divide your party into smaller groups and make several of these games.
Now that we’ve gone through the game setup, let’s get to how to play the holiday game!
Pass and Unwrap Christmas Gift Wrap Game Rules and Game Play Instructions
Goal Of The Unwrap The Gift Game
The goal of the unwrap Christmas present game is to unwrap as many gifts as you can (while following the rules!) before the person next to you rolls doubles on the dice.
Everything you unwrap (or loose gifts that fall out) during that time before their turn ends, the “unwrapper” player gets to keep!
How to play unwrap the gift games:
For the wrapping paper game, have everyone sit around a table or an area with a flat surface. (It’s way easier to play the game this way.)
Start the unwrap a gift game by giving one person the wrapped gift and the person to their left dice and a paper plate or pie plate to roll the dice in.
On GO! the person with the gift starts UNWRAPPING the gift (no intentional tearing or crazy ripping) while the person to their left starts rolling the dice over and over again, trying to get doubles.
This is called the passing the gift game because once someone rolls doubles, they yell out DOUBLES! or PASS! and then the gift box is passed to them, while they pass the dice to the person next to them on the left.
And the whole process starts again. (The person to the left immediately starts rolling the die while the newest person continues trying to unwrap the packages.)
Anything that is opened and/or found in the boxes on their unwrapping turn, they get to keep.
The game ends when the last person has opened the very last (smallest in the middle) gift.
GAME TIP: If you want to make the game more challenging, you can have players wear oven mitts to open the gifts.
Rules Of the Unwrap The Present Game
Before you start the game, make sure that everyone understands the rules!
No excessive ripping or tearing.
While there will be some rips and tears in the gift wrap, people cannot go crazy just ripping apart packages.
The goal of the game is to UNWRAP the package to get to the next layer, that means taking the tape off and unwrapping the gift wrap and removing the tape from box lids to get into the boxes (and not ripping them open).
Rules for keeping gifts:
Players get to keep any gifts, candy, money, etc. or loose items that fall out or that they unwrap during the time the other player is trying to roll doubles.
If you almost open the next gift layer but doubles are called, you must pass the gift game to the next player.
Merry Christmas! I hope you have fun with this pass and unwrap Christmas gift game!
