Blind Gift Stacking
Supplies: 2 sets of identical gifts (5 – 7 gifts per set)

This Christmas Party game is based off of successful communication. The Blind Gift Stacking game is a fun yet frustrating party game game for kids, a challenging game for teens and an interesting team building or office game to showcase the importance of good communication to be successful. Note the Holiday party game may be to frustrating for kids 7 and under.

What you need to play the Blind Gift Stacking Game
1. You need a variety of boxes. Make sure you have different sizes and shapes so you have unique gift stacks. If you use the same gift box size in a single stack be sure to wrap it in a different gift wrap.

2. You’ll need two sets of identically wrapped gifts or
– Note: If you can only have one set of gifts, then stage a variety of gift stacks and take photos of each stack. You’ll need a minimum of one stack per play and having more is better. Once you take the pictures, print and place one picture on card stock to create playing cards during the game.

3. Wrapping the gifts. To make the game easy – Wrap each gift in different wrapping paper. For medium difficulty use 2 or 3 different wrapping papers but in the same set of colors and for the most difficult wrap all the gifts in the same wrapping paper.

4. Space where guests can sit back to back and the players have a space or table in front of them where they can build their stack.

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How to Play Blind Gift Stacking Game
Start with two people sitting back to back on the floor or they can also sit in chairs
with a table in front of them. Each person will be able to see the 5 – 7 gifts in front of them.

Now a third person will assemble one of the sets of gifts stacking them, leaning them, and arranging them in any fashion in front of one of the player that will be describing the Gift Stack.  It is then the job of that player to describe the Stack of Gifts and guide the other player into assembling his or her gifts into the same Gift Stack through verbal communication.

Option: Rather than use a person to create the gift stacks which can take time and means you have two sets of gifts, use the Gift Stack game cards that I noted how to make above. Then the person describing the Stack of Gifts needs to just pull a card from the pile to begin play.

Play two ways:
See who can complete making the Stack of Gifts the fastest (So you will need a stopwatch)
If playing teams add the times together and the team with the lowest time wins.

If using the Gift Stack game cards, see how many stacks teams can correctly build in 3 minutes. The team with the most gift stack done during their turn wins. If there is a tie you can have a Gift Stack off tie breaker.

If using Game Cards, just make sure that the Game Hostess / parent can see the Gift Stack cards to confirm the that the stack is correct. We have an idea below involving making two sets and numbering the cards.

Ideas to Make Blind Gift Stacking More Challenging – Each One Changes How the Game is Played

a. Have more gifts available to build the Stack of Gifts, so if each stack has 6 boxes, provide 8 or 10 boxes to choose from.
b. Force better communication by mixing in “Can not say words” into the game. If they say that word “box” gift or “a selected color” and they say if their turn ends.
c. Questions only: The Gift Stacker must Ask a Yes or No Question and the team mate can only answer Yes or No.

Time Saver Tip, If Using Gift Stack Game Cards:
Parents – If you don’t have two sets of identical gifts wrap one set and then take photos of the gifts stacked in various ways. Then print out the photos of the gift stacks and turn them over and let the game begin.

If you do print them out, be sure to have two copies of each gift stack so the player describing the gift stack can have one and you as the judge can have the other. If you have a lot then number the gift stacks 1 – 10 so you know you are using the same ones.

Thanks, Brent T.