Christmas brings together people who almost never play the same game: the 15-year-old cousin, the parents, the 80-year-old grandma. Bingo is one of the few games where everyone plays on equal terms. The rules fit in one sentence, nobody has to be quick, and luck doesn't care about age.
Here's what you need for your family's Christmas bingo: the supplies, patterns with a Christmas look, cards to print, prize ideas and a way to let your phone call the balls.
What you need
- Cards. 1 to 3 per person for each round, plus a few spares. You can print them for free, as explained below.
- Something to mark with. a pen or pencil for each player.
- The balls. 75 numbered slips of paper in a bowl, or your phone drawing and calling them.
- The prizes. one for each round and a bigger one for the last, the blackout.
- The caller. one person draws and calls the balls. If the phone does the calling, whoever holds it can also play with their own paper card.
If this is your family's first bingo, the full step-by-step is in how to make a bingo at home.
Gather the ones you love for the next Bingo
See how simple it is to play and host with Bingo Pé Quente.
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Christmas patterns to play
Before each round, agree on the pattern a card has to make to win. Two of them look like Christmas, and two classics suit the occasion:
Christmas Tree
The tip, the branches getting wider and the trunk at the bottom.
Bell
The outline of the bell, with its mouth on the fourth row and the clapper below.
Picture Frame
The whole border, like a wreath around the card.
Blackout
Every number: the big prize to close the night.
On paper, any pattern works: just show it to everyone before you start. In the app, Picture Frame and Blackout are among the 18 classic patterns in the free version, and Christmas Tree and Bell are in PARTY. More patterns are in bingo patterns.
How to host Christmas bingo, step by step
- Agree on the rounds first. Start with quick patterns, like four corners or a line, and save the blackout for last.
- Hand out the cards. 1 to 3 per person. More cards mean more chances, and also more numbers to watch.
- Call the letter and the number. The caller announces slowly, with the column letter: "N, 41!". The letter helps players find the number on the card.
- BINGO! Whoever completes the pattern shouts, and the card is checked out loud, number by number, against the balls that were drawn.
- Tie. If two people shout on the same ball, a simple way out is for each of them to draw one more ball: the highest number takes the prize. Other ways are in ties in bingo.
Christmas bingo prizes for the whole family
A good Christmas prize pleases whoever wins it, whether they're 15 or 80. A few ideas that work for any age:
- Chocolate, candy canes or a tin of cookies.
- A mug, Christmas socks or an ornament for the tree.
- A deck of cards or a puzzle for the holidays.
- Gift swap bingo: everyone brings a small wrapped gift of similar value, and each winner picks one from the table. You can keep playing until everyone has one, so nobody goes home empty-handed.
- Prizes that cost nothing: a night off dish duty after dinner, the first slice of dessert, or a silly house trophy that passes from champion to champion.
More than 100 ideas, by budget and by age, are in bingo prize ideas.
Christmas bingo cards to print
Free: the site's card generator makes 75-ball cards to print at home, up to 8 at a time, with no sign-up. Type "Christmas Bingo" as the title and pick red or green: the title and the color are printed at the top of every card. Need more than 8? Make another batch.
With a Christmas look: our shop has a pack of 1,000 Christmas bingo cards, all different and numbered, in four sizes (1, 2, 4 or 6 per page). The background is deep-green velvet with golden reindeer (white on the 6-per-page version, to save ink), the B-I-N-G-O banner is red with gold letters, and our mascot wears a Santa hat in the center square. The pack also includes the caller set, with a call board, 75 calling cards to cut out and 50+ patterns, plus instructions in English. You can play the whole game on paper, without a phone. The purchase is made on Etsy.
Your phone calls the balls
With Bingo Pé Quente on your phone, the caller just taps the screen. The app draws from 1 to 75 with no repeats, calls every ball out loud, letter and number ("I, 25"), and shows the number big on the TV through screen mirroring.
The day before, while you have internet, download the recorded voice in the app, which is clearer than the phone's own voice, and test screen mirroring on your TV: the feature's name depends on the phone brand (Screen Cast, Smart View, Screen Mirroring).
Players can use the app too: it reads the paper card with the camera, keeps track of the balls the player types in and lets them know when the card completes the pattern. Checking the BINGO is still the caller's job. All of this is in the free version, which follows up to 3 cards. The app is free to download on Google Play, for Android phones.
Quick questions
- Does Christmas bingo have different rules? No. It's the same 75-ball bingo as always. What changes are the patterns, the prizes and the table decorations.
- How many cards should I print? 1 to 3 per person for each round, plus a few spares for latecomers.
- Can we play without a phone? Yes. 75 slips of paper in a bowl do the cage's job, and everything else is the same.
- Does the app work on iPhone? Not yet: Bingo Pé Quente is for Android. On an iPhone, Christmas bingo works on paper, with the cards and the bowl of slips.
- Can we play for money? Not in a family Christmas bingo: nobody pays to play, and prizes are bought or donated. Bingo for money is regulated, or banned, depending on where you live: in Brazil, for example, it's a misdemeanor under article 50 of Decree-Law 3,688/1941. Check your local rules before collecting any money.
The full explanation is in is bingo gambling?.
This Christmas, may the BINGO shout come from your living room, at any age.