Whether your competitive instinct is light-hearted or fierce, everyone is bound to be entertained with these traditional pastimes, perfect for enjoying while your festive feast is happily slow-cooking, or when empty plates have been cleared away after a meal.

Lie detector

Choose a speaker to address the group with three statements about themselves, two of which must be true and one false. Everyone in the group may now take it in turns to question the speaker on their claims, to reveal clues such as hesitation or shifty smiles. The group must decide together which statement is false before delivering their verdict and discovering whether they have been a successful lie detector.

Blindman’s Bluff

Choose one player to be blindfolded and spun around several times. The other players can amuse themselves by calling out to the “blind man” and dodging away from them. A player touched or caught by the “blind man” must wear the blindfold in the next round. As an extra challenge, the “blind man” must guess the identity of their captive before they can give up the blindfold.

Twenty questions

Nominate someone to think of something secretly, which falls into the categories animal, vegetable or mineral. Be creative; Father Christmas would be an animal and his wooden sled would be a vegetable! The secret-keeper reveals only the category of what they have in mind. The remaining players have just 20 questions between them to work out what this may be. The secret-keeper may answer only “yes”, “no” or “irrelevant”.