Left Right Christmas Game: Rules & Example Story

• 4–10

  Ages

• 6+

  Players

• Indoors

  Where

• 10–15 min

  How long

The left right game is the calmest thing on this entire site, and every Christmas party needs at least one calm ten minutes. Everyone sits in a circle holding or passing a wrapped gift; someone reads a story aloud; every time the word "left" or "right" appears, the gift moves one person in that direction. Nothing more complicated than that, and it somehow holds a room of children in genuine suspense until the very last line.

Below is exactly how the mechanic works, how to write or adapt your own story for it, and a short original example so you can see the pattern before you write a word yourself.

Writing a story that actually works

Any short, slightly silly story works as a base — the only rule is that "left" and "right" need to come up often enough that the gift is genuinely on the move throughout, not just twice near the end. Look for natural places to work them in: directions ("he turned left"), decisions ("she was right, of course"), even names and objects (a character called Wright, a house on the right side of the street). Read your draft aloud once before the party. If the gift would barely move, that's your sign to go back through and add a few more.

Who reads matters almost as much as what they read. An adult who can keep a straight face while narrating nonsense is ideal, but an older child who's proud to have been given the job works just as well and often commits to the silly voices with more enthusiasm than any adult will.

Here's a short excerpt to show the density you're aiming for — this is an original example written for this guide, not a traditional story, so treat it as a template rather than the whole thing:

Santa left the North Pole in a hurry, because he'd left his favourite red hat on the right-hand hook by the door. He turned left past the big pine tree, then right past the reindeer stables, before realising the hat was right where he'd left it all along — on his own head.

Where it goes wrong

The two failure modes are both about pace. Read too fast and the gift gets fumbled or missed entirely as children scramble to pass it on; read in a flat monotone with no pause at all and the "left"s and "right"s blur together until nobody's sure whose turn it is. Slow down very slightly on every trigger word rather than the whole story, so the gift genuinely changes hands each time, and read the final line properly slowly — the ending is the entire point, and rushing it is the one way to actually disappoint a room of children who've been patiently waiting their turn.

It's a good calm follow-on after something noisier like the indoor snowball fight or before sending everyone off on the candy cane hunt — between the three of them you've got a full Christmas party that never needs the same energy level twice.

What you need

• One or more small wrapped gifts
• A printed or read-aloud "left/right" story
• Chairs or floor space arranged in a circle

How to play the left right game

1. 1Sit everyone in a circle, on chairs or on the floor, close enough that a gift can be passed hand to hand without a reach.
2. 2Give one child the wrapped gift to hold, and have an adult or an older child stand just outside the circle to read the story aloud.
3. 3Explain the one rule before you start: every time the reader says "left", the gift moves one person to the left; every time they say "right", it moves one person to the right. Nothing else changes hands.
4. 4Read the story at a steady pace, pausing very briefly after each "left" or "right" so the gift genuinely changes hands rather than getting fumbled.
5. 5Whoever is holding the gift when the story's final word is read keeps it — read the last line slowly so everyone actually hears where it lands.
6. 6With a bigger group or more prizes, run it two or three times with a fresh small gift each round rather than one big prize once.

Variations