Easy and cheap Christmas sleepover ideas to make a holiday sleepover something your kids and teens will never forget.
The house is all cozy, everyone has extra time off, and there’s excitement in the air.
Holiday break is such a fantastic time to set up a sleepover!
And with these fun, cheap, and easy Christmas sleepover ideas?
Your kids and teens will create memories they'll never forget (a new Christmas tradition!).
Ready to be referred to as the “Cool Mom”?
Christmas Sleepover Ideas
Stretch that Christmas excitement and the season even more with these Christmas sleepover ideas.
1. Set Up a Grinch Drink Station
Gather a bunch of drink mix supplies from Dollar Tree, provide a lot of base water (maybe even seltzer water), and cups. Then let kids make their own drink recipes.
Why do I call this a Grinch Drink Mix Station?
Well…after kids and teens are done making their mixtures and concoctions, the drinks turn into some really weird colors. Green, dark purple, blue…kinda black.
Just like we used to do at Hoss's Steakhouse's soda station as kids:).
It's a pretty fun way to give teens something to do during a Christmas sleepover (even better if you want to pair it with a Grinch family movie night!).
2. Decorate a Mini-Brands Christmas Tree
Mini brands are pretty trendy right now…pair them with this white mini tree I found at Dollar Tree, and you’ve got a fun thing for preteens and teens to do – decorate their own mini-brand Christmas tree!
3. Set Up a Christmas Nail Art Station
Who doesn’t want some fun, holiday-themed nails?
Dollar Tree has some of the best, cheap nail art supplies out there.
Gather a bunch, and set them up for teens to help themselves to throughout the evening and night.
4. Play Candy Cane Table Hockey
Supplies needed: 1 full-sized candy cane per player, a ball of some sort (the white ping pong balls would work well, or a gumball), small red cups, and masking tape
Turn a candy cane upside down, and what do you get? A hockey stick!
Play this candy cane game for kids by setting up the goal at the end of each table (tape one cup to each side of the table).
Give players their “hockey stick”, and let the game begin. One student can be a referee (release the ball in the center), and two students can play. Or just have two players at a time.
First person to 5 goals, wins.
Hint: there are lots of other kid Christmas activities here.
5. Take the Christmas Selfie Scavenger Hunt Challenge
I created this fun teen Christmas selfie scavenger hunt that would be perfect for a Christmas sleepover night.
You can get it for free, too!
6. Create a Sleepover Party Holiday Gif
Imagine how fun it would be for teens to turn themselves into a fun GIF and have something to show everyone from this epic sleepover after Christmas is over?
It’s actually pretty simple to do. And free, using Canva’s free GIF-maker (you don’t even need an account) or Giphy’s free maker.
- You need several image files or a short video file. Each student can do this alone, with a friend, or in a group (you choose what dynamic is best) doing something silly.
- Once the images or video file is uploaded, they get to edit it with stickers, fonts, backgrounds, and whatever they’d like.
- Download as a GIF file.
Look – I just made this super silly one in about 5 minutes using Canva and my laptop’s camera while working on this article at Starbucks!
7. Make Christmas Cookie Fondue
You probably have a gazillion random bags and plates of cookies lying around, leading up to Christmas.
Use them up in a fun way by setting up a fondue station with warmed frosting, and let teens dip cookie bits in to eat while trading the latest pieces of gossip.
YUM.
8. Set Up a Christmas Bark Station
You know what’s so great about making Christmas Bark? It’s super simple to do – making it a great activity for little kids to participate in, too.
Host a family Bark-Off, where you each create your own Christmas Barks and then give out small, silly awards for the winners (like the most original, the tastiest, best decorated, etc.).
Buy all the ingredients for a base, and then let your kids pick a few toppings to pick up from the grocery store.
Here are some ideas for Christmas bark ingredients, plus how to create the base.
9. Do the Candy Cane Blind Taste Test
Supplies needed: 4 different flavored candy canes, blindfold, free printables (provided)
Have you noticed how many bajillion different flavored candy canes are now available?
I couldn’t believe I found 4 at the Dollar Tree on top of the original peppermint.
Get 3-4 different flavors, and make a game out of kids' taste-testing them and guessing what the flavor is.
What a fun holiday candy cane party game!
Hint: Do you think it’ll be too difficult for them to guess the flavor? Then provide the four different flavors on a sticky note, and have them guess which belongs to which candy cane.
10. Use Mini-Candy Art Kits
Have you seen these before?
I had 2 giddy preteen girls who got to put these together during a sleepover at their aunt's house (that's me!) earlier this year.
I found these kits at our local Asian grocery store. You can find them also here.
11. Build a Yeti Sugar Cube Castle
Every year, we build sugar cube castles for our Yeti (this weird toy leftover from when my son was 4).
Kids and teens LOVE this.
Grab several boxes of sugar cubes, a sturdy piece of cardboard, and some icing (you can make your own, or go with a cheap-o tub of it).
Then, construct the castle (you can even get a Yeti figurine to add to the top, here)!
Last year, we added a string of $3.98 cactus lights (battery-operated). Really added to it (you can get these at Dollar Tree).
Just look at my son’s Alamo-themed one from a few years ago.
Bonus: Throw a Sugar'n'Snow Elf Breakfast
Invite some elves, get some fake snow, and create a sugary breakfast display that no mother would approve of.
What a fun surprise for your sleepover guests!
Think:
- Stroopwafels
- Cheese danishes
- Hot cocoa
- Mini-chocolate-chip German pancakes
- etc.
What a fun elf sleepover idea!
I hope you've found these Christmas sleepover ideas inspiring enough to recreate them for your kids, teens, and their guests. It's going to be so much fun! Want even more? Check out these 100 sleepover ideas that are good any time of the year.
Amanda L. Grossman
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