Christmas Day tech activities for all the family

The countdown to Christmas is on and the preparations for the big day are underway. Presents are being bought and decorations are being put up everywhere as we well and truly get into the festive spirit.

However, Christmas is about much more than just giving gifts and eating delicious food; it’s about spending some quality time with our family.

While some people feel tech often gets in the way of us spending this quality time with our family, when used right, tech has a real ability to bring us together. Tech can make us all smile and laugh together, making Christmas Day a great opportunity to try something techy to add a bit of extra joy to the big day. There are loads of great tech activities that you and your family can enjoy on Christmas day, but these are our favourites.

Psych

Psych is a mobile game that has a similar concept to the popular card game Cards Against Humanity, except this one is family-friendly, so your kids won’t be encouraged to commit blasphemy on the day of biggest religious festival of the year.

The aim of the game is to pick out the right answer to ridiculous questions, the catch is that the other players submit the fake answers to the question to try and trip you up. Can you pick out the right answer from from your friends’ outrageous suggestions? Points are awarded to those who guess the right answer and those who successfully trick their friends with their fake answer. To play, everyone just downloads the app onto their phone and then joins the same game through the app. It’s a great, fun game for you and your kids to play on Christmas day.

Nintendo Switch

There’s no doubting it; the Nintendo Switch is a hit. Nintendo’s latest console is great fun for everyone, there’s a broad range of popular titles available that can be played either on the go as a portable console, or on the big screen at home by simply slotting the console into a docking station. The Switch’s main controls can simply slide off the sides of the console to become individual controllers of their own, making it perfect for interactive family multiplayer games.

The Switch is a great way for you to have fun with the family on Christmas Day and is well worth investing in for a family gift. The Switch has a game for everyone, if you’re looking for inspiration, Sports Party, Mario Kart and 1-2-Switch are all great interactive family games to get you started and put smiles on faces.

Heads Up

This one is loads of fun. Heads Up is a mobile game that first hit the app store in May 2013 and became an immediate hit. If you haven’t heard of it already, Heads Up is almost like a quick-fire game of charades using your smartphone. One player holds the phone on their head while words flash up on the phone screen, the other players have to help them guess what the the word is by performing actions and movements without saying it.

They have to guess as many words as they can in a restricted time period. It’s easy to play; just tilt the phone down when you get it right and up when you want to pass and there’s loads of different categories of words so that everyone can play along. The best part? The game records your family using the front facing camera, so you can see how ridiculous they looked while they were playing the game and helping you to guess the answer.

Fun fact: With help from Warner Bros., this game was actually created by Ellen DeGeneres. She played a similar game with her audience on her show using paper cards and it worked so well that she decided to make it into a mobile game. Is there anything she can’t do?

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes

Don’t worry, that’s not a threat, it’s just the name of one the best multiplayer games around today. Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is a simple yet frantic multiplayer cooperation game for VR headsets, such as the Google Daydream and PlayStation VR. It’s now available on major consoles, too, including the Xbox One and the previously mentioned Nintendo Switch.

The aim of the game is simple; you and your family have to work together to defuse the bomb before it explodes. One player, wearing the VR goggles, will be tasked with defusing the bomb, but they will be relying on the instructions of the other players to tell them how to do it. The other players have to tell the player in the hot seat how to defuse the bomb by following instructions from the 23-page bomb defusal manual. However, they can’t see what the bomb looks like, only the player in the hot seat can see that and every bomb is different, so they need to describe it to their family so that they can give them the right instructions. It’s a fun game using tech that encourages your family to work together to achieve a common goal, a great way to bring the family together this Christmas, or blow them apart…

These are just a few techy treats that can get your family laughing together on the big day. Are there any other fun tech games or activities that you like to enjoy with your family on Christmas Day? Get in touch with us and share your favourites with the giffgaff community to help spread the joy of tech this Christmas.