10 Virtual Holiday Party Ideas You Can Do From Home

At the end of 2021, we all know how to be socially distanced, but around the holidays, it can be difficult not seeing any, or few, of your friends, family or colleagues for holiday parties! With that being said, being safe and socially distant doesn’t mean you can’t throw an amazing holiday party! 

We have put together ten holiday party ideas that you can throw yourself, virtually! Best of all, they are easy and fun to do. If you have (and know how to use) Zoom, Google Hangouts, Facetime, Skype or any other video call platforms, you can use any of these ideas! 

Our favourite part of this list is how engaging and fun these holiday party ideas are! Sometimes video calls during the holidays can have a few small conversations, a life update, and only lasts a few minutes. Some of our ideas are games, and some are enjoying each other’s company. Either way, there is something for everyone, no one will be bored, and you will get quality time with your loved ones!

1. Gingerbread House Decorating 

Everyone loves decorating and putting together a gingerbread house during the holidays! Before your holiday party, gather all your gingerbread houses and items to decorate with. Most grocery stores sell gingerbread houses to assemble and decorate around the holidays, or you can buy them online. 

Split into teams (household) and put your gingerbread house skills to the test by seeing who can finish first. But be careful not to rush since the crowd decides at the end whose is the best gingerbread house!

2. Holiday Movie Night

Pick your favorite Holiday movie, and have a watch party with your friends or family! You can use a tool like Sync-Video or Watch2Gether so everyone can watch your holiday movie simultaneously. 

(Fun Tip: Create a drinking game and get it involved. For example, every time Santa goes “HO HO HO”, drink!)

3. Wine and Wreath Night

Before you host your virtual holiday party, send everyone the materials (or a list of materials) they will need for Wine and Wreath Night! If you want to be fancy, send them a bottle of wine as well as a favour. Have a relaxing night drinking wine, decorating your wreaths and spending quality time with your friends, virtually!

4. Holiday Paint Night

Just like Wine and Wreath night, but with paint and canvas! Get ready for a night full of fun and competition on who has the best painting. Send everyone a picture that they are going to paint, and see who paints it the best!

(Fun Tip: It’s always fun to follow a Bob Ross tutorial online)!

5. Ugly Christmas Sweater Party

See who shows up to your virtual holiday party with the ugliest sweater! Or for more fun and games, get everyone to take an old sweater, some fabric paint and other decorations (from any craft store/department) and have everyone decorate their ugly sweater!

6. Secret Santa

This one is the most simple, but can be the most tricky virtually! Most people know how Secret Santa works, but if not, everyone puts their name into a draw and picks a name. Once you receive your name, you get a gift for them. Once everyone comes together for your Holiday Party, you swap gifts and guess who had who for Secret Santa!

When doing Secret Santa virtually, you will need to ship your gift to your drawn name. The tricky part about this is that you will see the name and address of your Secret Santa. The best way to do this is to have someone in your family/household that can bring your Secret Santa’s gift inside, so you don’t know who has you!

Or, if you don’t want to wait and guess, you can get it in the mail (knowing your Secret Santa) and wait until party day. During the virtual party, everyone opens their gifts together! 

7. Cookie Swap

A variation of the cookie swap, a couple of weeks beforehand, have each baker make cookies. Make enough for each guest and ship a box to every household. Make sure you carefully package them, with their recipes, so they do not break or go stale during the shipping process. 

When you hop on the video call, have everyone try each other’s cookie recipes!

8. Holiday Scavenger Hunt 

Everyone loves and knows how to play a good scavenger hunt. Instead, this year it is holiday-themed! Before the party, create a list of Christmas-themed items that people have in their house during the holiday season. Depending on how many people are on the video call, you can either divide up into teams or take each other on in finding and showing everyone that you have that item. The first team/person that gets all or most of the holiday items wins!

9. Name That Holiday Song

A classic! This one is self-explanatory, whoever is hosting will come up with a playlist of holiday songs. Split off into teams, whoever guesses the song correctly first wins! 

(Pro Tip: They can guess the singer or band name for bonus points).

10. The Present Wrapping Game

If you think you’re confident in your present wrapping skills, put them to the test with this fun challenge! The only real requirement for this challenge is to make sure everyone’s gift is equally difficult to wrap. Put a timer on, and see who can wrap the present the fastest!

Don’t go too quickly, since, in the end, they will be judged by everyone to see whose gift is the most “presentable”! 

(Pro Tip: Create easy to very difficult items that most people have in their households, that way it’s equal for everyone and more difficult to wrap!)