The children get to keep whatever they're holding when the music stops-more exciting than just picking a gift out of a bag. 'You have to make sure that everyone gets a gift.' Kothari suggests playing a version of musical chairs by having the kids sit in a circle and passing around wrapped gifts while Christmas music plays. 'With children you have to be really careful because of their feelings,' says Lisa Kothari, owner of the national kids' party-planning business Peppers and Pollywogs. Do a kids' 'musical chairs' gift exchange.Whoever it points to either opens a gift, or, if they don't have any left, designates another person to do the same. Give a bottle (or even a large candy cane) a spin. Try a twist on spin the bottle to take turns opening gifts. For example, Not a creature was stirring, not even a _. Word Guess: Tape a fill-in-the-blank holiday phrase on each gift and have children answer before unwrapping. If she can, she gets the gift and sits out the rest of the game. The person who is holding the gift has to finish the line. Designate someone to stop the song mid-verse. Finish the Carol: Sit in a circle and pass each gift around to the tune of a holiday song. Try Finish the Carol or Word Guess either works for a kid-friendly gift exchange. After the kids finish with Santa surprises, they can go off and look for new trinkets while you take a breather, get another cup of coffee, and gear up for unwrapping the presents under the tree. Save a few stocking-stuffer gifts (anything small and inexpensive), wrap them up, and hide them throughout the house. At the end, the moderator gets to either choose the last gift remaining or steal a gift from somebody else-a one-time-only privilege for all of their hard work. Players use clickers or simply raise their hands to answer, and once they get a present, they're out of the competition. Can you name all nine of Santa's reindeer? If so, you get first pick of the presents in the pile. (This gift exchange game can also be called a Yankee Swap or Dirty Santa.) The game continues until everyone has a gift. Any player whose gift is stolen gets to pick again. 3 can then steal either gift, or choose and unwrap another, and so on. 2 then either 'steals' that present or picks and unwraps another one from the pile. 1 chooses and unwraps a gift, then shows it to everyone else. Draw numbers out of a hat to see who gets to pick from the pile first. Invite everyone to contribute a wrapped gift. 'Stealing' from other participants gives this gift exchange game an element of unpredictability. Hand each person his or her spool of yarn and let the mayhem ensue.

You want to make it as difficult as possible for the gift recipient to follow his or her yarn through the 'cobweb' of different colors to find the present. Unwind the yarn as you zigzag across the room, trailing it under furniture, looping it around banisters and over curtain rods, anywhere you can. Tie one end of a spool of yarn to each gift-blue yarn to one player's gift, red yarn to another, and so on. Designate one room for the party, and assign each player a yarn color. This wacky search game was all the rage during the Victorian era. It becomes that person's responsibility to pass it along, like a hot potato, the next year. Wrap up your most egregious or inexplicable Christmas present from last year (sad-eyed ceramic cat, anyone?) for an unsuspecting family member. The box rotates like that until it has made the rounds of all the friends, ending up back with Anna, complete with personal notes from her pals and their gifts to her. The first friend takes out a gift, puts in three of her own, adds to the note, and ships everything on to the next. Anna Baldwin, a reader from Arlee, Mont., does this with her three best friends from college: She fills a box with locally made, low-cost items-one for each friend-and a personal note, and mails it off.

Holiday gift exchange illegal