How to Make a DIY Christmas Board Game with Your Kids: Board, Goal and Rules in One Afternoon

A homemade board game is one of the best things you can make with your children over the Christmas holidays: it costs almost nothing, it fills a whole afternoon, and the children will want to play the game they invented far more than anything from a shop. This guide to making a DIY Christmas board game takes you through a simple 7-step method – route, goal, special spaces, ending, fairness, test round and fixing the rules – so you finish with a game that actually works, not just a nice drawing.

DIY Christmas board game: what you need

• A large sheet of card or the back of a cereal box (A3 or bigger is ideal)
• Pencil, ruler, felt-tip pens or crayons
• Scissors and glue (scissors with an adult for younger children)
• One or two dice – or make a spinner from card and a pencil
• Pawns: bottle caps, buttons or little folded card figures
• A sheet of paper for the house rules

Plan about 2–3 hours, including the test round. Children from about 6 can do most of the drawing and thinking; younger ones can colour the spaces and choose the pawns.

Steps 1–2: the route and the goal

Step 1: draw the route. A loop of 20–30 spaces is the sweet spot. Fewer, and the game is over too quickly; more, and the youngest lose patience. A loop (rather than a path from start to finish) lets you play several laps and makes it easy to adjust the length later. Draw it in pencil first, then number the spaces.

Step 2: pick one goal. Children always want five goals at once. Choose one. Some Christmas ideas:

• Be the first to reach the North Pole (a race – simplest for little ones)
• Collect the most presents before the end
• Find all the reindeer hidden around the board
• Decorate your tree: collect one bauble of each colour

Write the goal at the top of the rules sheet in one sentence. If you cannot explain it in one sentence, it is too complicated.

Steps 3–4: special spaces – 12 Christmas ideas

Step 3: add special spaces. Plain spaces are fine, but special ones make the stories. Use roughly one special space for every four plain ones, and spread them out. Here are 12 ideas to pick from:

1. Chimney: slide down – move back 3 spaces.
2. Reindeer stable: jump forward to the next stable.
3. Mince pie: stop for a snack – miss a turn.
4. Present: take a present token.
5. Grinch: give one present to the player on your left.
6. Ice rink: slide forward 2 spaces.
7. Letter to Father Christmas: everyone else moves back 1 space.
8. Carol singers: sing one line of a carol or move back 2.
9. Snowball fight: swap places with any other player.
10. Christmas cracker: roll again.
11. Lost mitten: go back to find it – return to the last Present space.
12. Star: a safe space – nothing can move you while you stand here.

Step 4: decide how the game ends. A race ends when someone reaches the finish. A collecting game needs an end trigger: after a fixed number of rounds, when the present pile runs out, or after everyone has done three laps. A fixed number of rounds is the fairest, because the game cannot drag on forever.

Steps 5–6: making it fair for the youngest

Step 5: give everyone a real choice. Pure luck is fine for 4-year-olds, but children from 6 enjoy deciding something. An easy trick: roll two dice and choose one of them. Suddenly every turn is a little puzzle – which number gets me to the present, and which one avoids the chimney?

Step 6: balance the ages. Let the youngest player start, give them an extra present at the beginning, or let them roll two dice and add them while older players use one. Write any handicap on the rules sheet so nobody argues about it later.

Step 7: the test round and fixing the rules

Play once, all the way through, and keep a pencil handy. Watch for these problems:

• Too long? Remove spaces or make the end trigger come sooner.
• One player runs away with it? Add a Grinch or Snowball fight space to pull the leader back.
• Nobody lands on the fun spaces? Move them closer together.
• Arguments? A rule is unclear – rewrite it in one short sentence.

Then fill in the one-page house rules. Copy this template:

• Name of the game: …
• Goal (one sentence): …
• Players and who starts: …
• On your turn: 1. … 2. … 3. …
• Special spaces: (draw each symbol and its rule)
• The game ends when: …
• Who wins: … and what happens in a tie
• Invented by: (everyone’s names and the date)

Making it last: card, lamination and a box

• Glue the finished board onto thick card so it lies flat. A board on two sheets can be joined with tape on the back so it folds in half.
• Laminate the board and the rules, or cover them with clear sticky-back plastic, so they survive spilt cocoa.
• Keep pawns, dice and tokens in a small box or envelope – a decorated shoebox works well, with the rules taped inside the lid.
• Small pieces such as buttons and tokens are not suitable for children under 3.

A game you made together becomes a family tradition: bring it out every Christmas and add a new special space each year.

Prefer to print one ready?

If the afternoon is short, you can also print a finished game and still do the cutting and assembling together. Holly Lane is a printable Christmas board game for 2–6 players aged 6+, built on the same “roll two dice, use one” idea described above. Read more in our article on Christmas board games for the whole family, or try the free edition first.

Download the free edition See the full edition Christmas board games for families