Host Your Own Christmas Bingo Night!

Christmas is upon us! You know what that means—last minute shopping, stocking up on food like the end is nigh, and spending every waking moment praying it will (or won’t) snow. And of course, there are the parties—plenty and plenty of parties. But sometimes, these parties can get a little...boring. A little...normal. So, here at BingoPort we thought we’d help our favourite bingo players have a little bit of festive fun.

After all, what better way is there to celebrate the festive season than to mix it with the fun of bingo? With that thought in mind, we decided to create a guide, so you can host your own Christmas Bingo Night! So, if you love to host parties and play bingo, this is the guide for you. Check out all our top tips below for a fun-filled festive night.

1. Bingo

Well, as the name suggests, this is a bingo night—so you’re going to have to provide bingo. But don’t worry, BingoPort has you completely covered. We can help you create your own bingo cards, complete with different colours and titles. All you have to do is print out the cards, and off you go! Plus, we even have our own automatic bingo caller.

Still, it wouldn’t be a particularly interesting bingo night if you didn’t spice it up a little though. We have a few suggestions:

Instead of using bingo dabbers, why not use sweets or Celebrations chocolates to mark off numbers? That way even the losers can enjoy a few festive sweets along the way.
Obviously, you’ll need a talented and particularly bubbly bingo caller to shout out the numbers along the way. But how about you use your own Christmas bingo calls to make things a bit more interesting? We like the sound of Number 1, Partridge in a Pear Tree.
Instead of calling Full House after marking off all the numbers, you could shout out Merry Christmas to make it a bit more seasonal.

2. Ambience

You definitely can’t host a Christmas Bingo Night without providing the right kind of festive ambience in your home—’tis the season, after all.

There are many steps to providing the right kind of setting—make sure you read through our list (and check it twice, naturally).

Decorations

Christmas tree and home decor

Deck the halls with bells of holly is definitely a rule to live by. Only in this case, we mean deck your house with anything that vaguely links back to Christmas. The perfect house would have an oversized Christmas tree stacked with every decoration possible, the walls would be covered in tinsel and we definitely wouldn’t say no to a few blow-up Santas or snowmen either.

Music

Every party needs an epic playlist or two, and yours is no different. There are three routes to take with music:

Create a playlist with all the best Christmas hits.
Create a playlist without any Christmas songs.
Mix the two.

Personally, we prefer the last option. Some people love Christmas jingles and some people don’t—this option will end up pleasing both types (hopefully).

Check out BingoPort’s December Monthly Playlists—including a Bonus Christmas Hits playlist and a Pop Hits playlist!

Extras

Don’t forget to check you’ve got enough chairs and furniture for your guests—you don’t want to have to force people to sit on the floor all night! And if you’re aiming for an even more festive atmosphere, light a few seasonal candles. Cinnamon is one of our favourites—it definitely screams ‘Christmas’.

3. Dress Code

Forget dressing smart this month—we’re all about dressing like it’s our last Christmas ever. This means dressing ourselves like we’re Christmas trees or like stylish Christmas elves. So we recommend ~~forcing~~ persuading guests to do the same. There are many ways you can do this, but we’ve managed to narrow it down to two:

Traditional Christmas Clothing

It isn’t Christmas if you haven’t wrestled someone into an itchy, hideous Christmas jumper, complete with its own flashing lights. You could ask your guest to wear their own Christmas jumpers, and even host a competition. Alternatively, you could get your guests to wear reindeer antlers or Santa hats.

Christmas Fancy Dress

The Grinch and Buddy the Elf

If you want to mix things up a little and swerve away from the ‘traditional’ Christmas clothing, you could always try a bit of Christmas fancy dress.

Obviously, there’s the traditional route of dressing like Santa Claus or one of his elves—but we prefer the idea of getting your guests to dress up as Christmas movie characters. If you’ve got a particularly Christmas-obsessed friend, you could have them dress up as Buddy from Elf. Or, if you’ve got a grouchy friend who’s ‘too cool’ for Christmas, have them dress up as the Grinch or Scrooge!

Let your guests know that resistance is futile—if they want to have a memorable night, they have to look the part—no arguments.

4. Refreshments

What kind of successful party doesn’t have memorable refreshments? They’re the centerpiece of every get-together. They can be a nightmare to plan, but luckily for you—it’s Christmas. That means there’s plenty of choice—with plenty of opportunities to wow your guests.

Food

The only issue you’ll have with food is trying to figure out how to narrow your options down. We’re quite big fans of turkey and cranberry sandwiches—it’s the perfect combo. And who could forget our other favourite—pigs in blankets! Of course, if you’re feeling particularly fancy, you could have a few cheeseboards or pastries out—they usually go down a treat.

While we love savoury dishes, we can’t help but feel that our real favourite has to be the dessert menu. And what a time for desserts. There’s mince pies, Christmas pudding—or how about a fancy Gingerbread Trifle, or After Eight Ice Cream Shots. Boy, we know what we’re making for our party!

And don’t forget to scatter a few candy canes or Celebrations chocolates around too.

Drinks

The only thing that’s more important than food at a party is the drinks. Now, you could go down the traditional route: there’s mulled wine, the classically Christmassy Baileys, champagne/prosecco, or even hot chocolate or mocktails for guests who prefer non-alcoholic drinks. We love the sound of a Nojito or Cuddles on the Beach.

Just because you’re hosting the party, doesn’t mean you should fund the entire thing however. Get your guests to pitch in a little—they could make a few snacks or dishes, or they could contribute a bottle of wine or two. If you get everyone to pitch in a little, you can spread the cost evenly.

5. Prizes

The prizes, like most things, will depend on the size of your budget. Now considering this is a Christmas Bingo Night, we think it would only be fair to offer prizes that are Christmas themed. Relax! We don’t expect you to offer your guests partridges in pear trees, or five gold rings—we just mean that you could add a bit of a seasonal spin.

If you’re a fan of cash prizes, you could ask your guests to contribute £5 or so to a prize pot, which will be split amongst winners. Unless you’ve got a big party going however, you probably won’t go down this route.

Another route to go down is food. And by food, we mean chocolate. (Don’t pretend like you haven’t stocked up on your Celebrations boxes.) You could even buy a few Christmas stockings and fill them up with little chocolates and candy canes. Or, if you've got enough BingoPort points built up, you could get some prizes from BingoPort's reward store!

If you love a bit of mystery and silliness, you could do Secret Santa. Give your guests their designated names in advance of the party, so they can buy a gift (within budget limits). Instead of handing out these presents at the start of the party, they can be given to the recipient after they’ve won 1L or a Full House, for example. If the recipient doesn’t win at all (some people just don’t have much luck) they can be given their present at the end of the night—so everyone’s a winner.

If your guests aren’t happy enough with their Secret Santa gifts, you could even have a prize swap at the end.

6. Intermissions

So, you probably won’t be able to spend the whole night playing bingo and eating (shocker), so here are a few great ways to bulk out your party:

It's a wonderful life still

Christmas Movies

Everyone has a favourite Christmas movie, whether it’s Elf, Love Actually or It’s a Wonderful Life. If you don’t have time for more than one, you can get people to vote and go with majority rule. It’s not Christmas if you haven’t watched a festive movie.

Charades

Who doesn’t love a good game of charades? It’s fun, silly and is usually even better after a few cheeky Christmas cocktails! Put a festive spin on it and have cards for Christmas movie titles, carols and every other Christmas buzzword you can think of.

Build a Snowman

Now this one is definitely dependent on the weather. If you’ve got snow—perfect! Build a snowman together, or hold a competition. If you don’t have any snow, you could always look at a picture instead…Or watch Frosty the Snowman.

Drinking Bingo

It’s not Christmas without a drinking game or two—and what could be better than combining bingo and drinking? Each time a number on your bingo card is called, mark it off and take a shot or sip of your drink—by the time you get to Full House, you should be pretty happy. Or, if you know you’re a frequent loser, take a shot each time your numbers aren’t called. Either way, everyone’s a winner.

Caroling

Note that we put this after drinking bingo—some people need a little bit of liquid courage before they sing in front of a crowd. But after that, they should be belting out Jingle Bell or Silent Night in no time at all, What better way is there to get into the Christmas spirit?

That just about covers it. Now you’ve got all the ingredients necessary to host the perfect Christmas Bingo Night. We hope you have a great Christmas—let us know how your Christmas Bingo Night goes in the comments!

Merry Christmas gif