Top 5 Holiday-Themed Team Building Activities

The holiday season offers companies a unique opportunity to encourage collaboration, engagement, and fun through team-building activities. These activities not only break up the routine but also bring employees closer together during a festive time of year.

If you’re searching for creative holiday team building ideas for your team, you’re in the right place. In this blog, we’ll explore five of the best holiday team building activities that can ignite team spirit while providing opportunities for engagement, laughter, and connection.

1. Holiday Recipe Sharing

One of the most universal traditions during the holidays is sharing delicious food. Tapping into everyone’s love of food can be fun and meaningful way to bring festive cheer to the office.  There are two ways you can approach this:

Option 1: Virtual Recipe Sharing

If your team is hybrid, distributed, or remote, you can use Kudoboard to create a digital space for employees to share their favorite holiday recipes. Kudoboard allows team members to post their favorite dishes, photos, personal stories, and tips on a holiday recipe board. It’s a great way to learn more about your colleagues’ cultures, traditions, and cooking skills. Plus, it sparks team engagement and conversation, encouraging employees to try new recipes at home.

All it takes to set up is to create a dedicated Kudoboard and invite employees to share their recipes, photos of the food, or even videos of them making the dish. For a fun added twist, have employees vote for the most creative or appetizing recipe and award the winner a small prize. Or print the board as a company cookbook to share with all employees as a holiday gift.

Option 2: In-Office Potluck

A holiday potluck is a classic way for in-office teams to get everyone involved. Each team member can bring a dish representing their holiday tradition, whether a main course, dessert, or even a signature holiday drink (non-alcoholic if needed). To enhance the team-building element, you can pair people up and have them share their story behind the dish, then rotate.

Why It Works:

Food has a natural way of bringing people together. As your teams share the stories behind their favorite dishes, you are encouraging personal connection and cultural appreciation. It’s a way to bond over a universal love of food while celebrating your employees’ diverse experiences. Recipe-sharing or potluck setups also create moments for collaboration and fun outside the regular workday.

2. Holiday-themed Office Costume Party

A holiday-themed office costume party is a playful and interactive way to celebrate the season. Whether it’s dressing up as reindeer, snowmen, or even holiday movie characters, this fun activity encourages employees to get creative while adding a festive touch to the office or virtual meetings.

How to Set It Up:

• Choose a holiday theme for the costumes, such as “Winter Wonderland,” “Classic Holiday Movies,” or “Ugly Sweater Extravaganza,” and encourage employees to dress up accordingly.

• If you’re hosting the holiday party in the office, you can decorate the space to match the theme, offering a backdrop for photos and a runway for costume parades.

• For remote or hybrid teams, invite employees to dress up during a virtual meeting and participate in a costume contest online.

• Use Kudoboard to create a space where employees can post photos of their costumes, vote for their favorites, and leave fun comments.

Why It Works:

Dressing up in costumes allows employees to express their creativity and sense of humor. It brings fun and competition to the workplace, creating shared experiences and inside jokes for the new year.

Whether in person or online, the costume party will lighten the mood, reduce stress, and create lasting memories, enhancing overall employee engagement during holidays.

3. Gratitude Board

The holiday season is an ideal time to reflect on what we are thankful for, and creating a team-wide gratitude board is an effective way to foster positivity and team bonding. This activity encourages employees to acknowledge each other’s contributions, celebrate wins, and highlight things they appreciate about their colleagues.

How to Set It Up:

• For in-office teams, dedicate wall space where employees can write down what they are grateful for on the provided paper and post it on the wall.
• For remote or hybrid teams, create a dedicated Gratitude Kudoboard and invite your team to post messages of gratitude.
• Encourage employees to express their appreciation for anything they appreciate, whether it’s a peer who helped with a project or the company culture as a whole.
• At the end of the season, you can compile the posts into a printed keepsake or a digital summary to share with the entire team.

Why It Works:

Acts of gratitude lead to higher morale and a stronger sense of belonging. Creating a gratitude wall strengthens interpersonal relationships and the company’s overall culture. Gratitude-focused activities help employees remember the good around them, which reduces stress, increases happiness and creates a more cohesive team environment.

4. Holiday Office Decoration Contest

A holiday office decoration contest is a simple but effective workplace holiday activity that encourages creativity, teamwork, and a healthy dose of competition. Whether your office is fully decorated in holiday lights or just a few desks are spruced up with seasonal flair, this activity brings a festive atmosphere to the workplace.

You can extend this to a remote team by encouraging employees to decorate their home office spaces and share pictures on a digital platform (such as Kudoboard) or during a virtual meeting.

How to Set It Up:

• Choose a theme (e.g., winter wonderland, gingerbread house, classic holiday movies) and let teams get creative.
• Divide employees into small groups to decorate their office spaces or desks. 
• Assign judges or allow employees to vote for their favorite designs at the office holiday party, or collect votes virtually.

Why It Works:

Decorating spaces allows employees to collaborate on a lighthearted project while expressing their holiday cheer. Creative activities like decorating contests brighten and bring energy to the workplace, enhancing the holiday mood while boosting morale. It also fosters friendly competition, leading to fun banter and lots of laughs.

5. New Year’s Resolution Sharing 

As the holidays wrap up, thoughts often turn to the new year and the goals we want to achieve. Whether displayed on a bulletin board or a virtual app, sharing new year’s resolutions is a great way to bond with your coworkers and motivate each other as you enter the new year. 

A simple way to share new year’s resolutions is by creating a virtual resolution board on Kudoboard. Team members can post their goals for the upcoming year and find accountability buddies. Whether personal or professional, sharing resolutions helps create accountability and allows team members to support each other in their goals.

How to Set It Up:

• Set up a Kudoboard or Slack channel dedicated to new year’s resolutions.
• Ask team members to post their goals or something they want to accomplish in the coming year.
• Use comments for employees to offer words of encouragement or suggestions on how to help each other reach their goals.

Why It Works:

Sharing resolutions builds a sense of community and accountability within the team.

It opens the door for colleagues to support each other, whether offering advice or simply cheering each other on throughout the year. Additionally, this holiday team building activity fosters a future-oriented mindset, encouraging growth and collaboration. It also strengthens bonds as employees become more invested in each other’s success.

Bonus: 5 More Workplace Holiday Activities Ideas

Okay, you know that there aren’t just five top holiday activities for the workplace—there are many. An activity makes it to the top because it works for your organization. So, if the above list didn’t inspire you, here are five more holiday team building ideas to consider.

Holiday Talent Show

A holiday talent show is a fun and engaging way to celebrate the holiday season while showcasing your team’s unique talents. Whether your employees sing, play an instrument, perform comedy, or have other hidden talents, this activity allows them to step into the spotlight in a lighthearted, non-work-related way.

How to Set It Up:

• Invite employees to sign up for the talent show and encourage creativity. They can perform holiday songs or showcase a hobby. Or host a “minor talent show” and encourage everyone to come with something small but impressive, like whistling or juggling.
• If your team is remote, host the event using a virtual platform like Zoom or Teams, or have an in-person event if your office setup allows it.
• Incorporate a panel of judges (or let the entire team vote) to award fun categories such as “Best Holiday Spirit,” “Most Creative,” or “Most Entertaining.”
• Optionally, create a Kudoboard to collect videos or pictures of each performance so employees who couldn’t attend live can still enjoy the talent show afterward.

Holiday Charity Challenge

The holiday season is a time of giving, making a charity challenge an excellent way to boost team spirit while contributing to a good cause. This activity combines friendly competition with social responsibility, as teams compete to gather donations, volunteer time, or collect items for a charity of their choice.

How to Set It Up:

• Divide employees into teams and assign each team a charity or cause they want to support. The charity could be a local food bank, toy drive, animal shelter, or other charitable organization.
• Set a timeframe for the challenge and encourage teams to raise funds, donate goods, or volunteer for their chosen cause.
• Track the team’s progress in a central location, where each team can post updates, photos of their contributions, and motivational messages.
• At the end of the challenge, celebrate the team that made the most impact by making an additional company donation in their name.

Holiday Trivia Game

A holiday trivia game is an exciting and interactive way to engage employees in friendly competition while testing their knowledge of all things related to the festive season. Questions can include holiday traditions, movies, songs, and global celebrations, making it a perfect activity to add to a virtual holiday party for a diverse workplace.

How to Set It Up:

• Create a trivia game with questions on various holiday topics, such as holiday history, famous festive movies, holiday music, and traditions worldwide.
• Use platforms like Kahoot, Zoom polls, or a simple slideshow for in-office settings.
• Organize employees into teams to promote collaboration or let individuals compete for prizes.
• Include a mix of easy and challenging questions to keep it fun and engaging for everyone. Keep it inclusive by ensuring not all questions are about one holiday.

Holiday-themed Virtual Escape Room

A holiday-themed virtual escape room is an exciting way to engage your employees in a problem-solving activity with a festive twist. With many employees working remotely or in hybrid teams, a virtual escape room offers a fun, inclusive option for everyone to participate.

How to Set It Up:

• Several online platforms offer customizable holiday themes, such as solving puzzles in Santa’s workshop or escaping from a winter wonderland.
• Participants can work in small groups to tackle various challenges, unlocking clues as they work together to solve the final puzzle.

Holiday Crafting Workshop

A holiday crafting workshop is a hands-on, creative, team-building activity that lets employees tap into their artistic side while making festive decorations or holiday gifts. With a bit of planning, this activity works well for both in-office and remote teams.

How to Set It Up:

• Organize a crafting session where employees can make holiday-themed items, such as ornaments, wreaths, holiday cards, or even DIY gift wrap. Provide various materials or give participants a list of easy-to-find supplies.
• For remote teams, send crafting kits to employees beforehand or create a list of simple items they can gather from home. Host a virtual crafting session where everyone creates holiday crafts together via video chat.
• Use Kudoboard to display photos of everyone’s finished crafts and let employees share their creative processes or the meaning behind their creations.

Why Incorporate Holiday Team Building Activities?

Holiday team-building activities are essential for maintaining and boosting employee engagement during holidays. During the holiday season, workloads can fluctuate, stress levels can increase, and some employees may feel disconnected due to time off or remote work arrangements. Implementing fun and festive holiday team-building ideas helps counter these challenges by:

• Creating a sense of unity and belonging among employees.
• Offering stress relief through engaging, low-pressure activities.
• Promoting creativity and collaboration in an enjoyable setting.
• Celebrating diversity through the sharing of different traditions and customs.

Final Thoughts

When done right, workplace holiday activities can offer much more than a fun break from the usual work routine. They create lasting connections between employees, enhance communication, and improve team morale while fostering a sense of holiday spirit making them perfect for in-office or virtual team building.

Whether you’re sharing favorite recipes, competing in an escape room, posting on a gratitude board, or sending out a holiday card, these activities will bring your team closer together this holiday season.