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The Thread

Find stories to inspire you, ideas from people we admire and our expertise for a home well curated, a wardrobe well put together, a life well lived.

Games to play with the family over the holidays

The feasting is over. The presents they’ve been hinting at for months are all open. It’s time to let the games commence. Open another bottle of bubbly, grab the Quality Streets and let the fun begin!

The Christmas Murder Mystery

The classic game with a festive twist. Write down your name on a piece of paper and on another one, a Christmas-themed object from around the house. (It has to be something you could easily pick up.) Each player adds their scraps of paper to two hats – one for the objects and one for the people. After pulling one name and one object out of the hat, the aim is to pass the person you draw the physical Christmas object on your piece of paper. If they take it without noticing what you’re doing, they die and must give you (the killer) their person’s name and object, so you can continue to go on a killing spree.

The Minister’s Cat

Do you know your adjectives? In alphabetical order, each player must come up with adjectives to describe the Minister’s cat. The first player starts with ‘A’ and could say “The Minister’s cat is angry”. Everyone must then come up with their own adjective beginning with ‘A’. Then the second player starts with ‘B’ and could say “The Minister’s cat is beautiful”. Rotate as far as you can through the alphabet until a player fails to come up with an adjective or repeats one by mistake, and is out of the game.

Ibble Dibble

As seen on TV series The Crown, this is a drinking game that requires the following: drinks, a cork and a lighter. Players sit in a circle and are each given a number with ‘Ibble Dibble’ attached (One Ibble Dibble, Two Ibble Dibble, Three Ibble Dibble etc.). Start by burning the end of the cork until it blackens, so it can be used to mark people’s faced with charcoal. The marks are called ‘dibble ibbles’. One person then kicks off the game with a tongue-twister, to include their Ibble Dibble name and how many ‘dibble ibbles’ they have on their face (which will be zero to start with). For example: “One Ibble Dibble with zero dibble ibbles calls Five Ibble Dibble with zero dibble ibbles.” The next player (e.g. player two) would then need to repeat the same line with their name: “Two Ibble Dibble with zero dibble ibbles calls Three Ibble Dibble with zero dibble ibbles.” If a player messes up the rhyme, they get a black dot on their face and have to take a sip of their drink. The one with the fewest ‘dibble ibbles’ on their face at the end of the game wins.

Picture Charades

Put your drawing skills to the test. With a minimum of four people, split into two teams. Each team will need a pen, a large pad of paper and an artist who will draw the word. Use either a reference card or an online word generator for the words to be chosen at random. The rest of the team members will then have one minute to guess what the artist is drawing without using sounds, letters or sign language. The team who is able to guess the most words within a time limit wins.

Who Am I?

From a celebrity to a fictional character, you can be anybody. Each player writes a name of a well-known person on a Post-it note and sticks it on the forehead of the player next to them. Without knowing who you are, you have to guess asking only yes-or-no questions until you get it right. Each time you get a ‘no’ answer, play passes to the next person. E.g. ‘Am I a cartoon character?’, ‘Am I a famous singer?’, ‘Am I a woman?’ Play until everyone has guessed who they are.