The Christmas Left Right Game, With the Full Story

The left right game is the simplest party game that still produces an actual result: everyone sits in a circle holding a wrapped gift, someone reads a story, and every time the word "left" or "right" appears, the parcels move that way. Whatever you are holding when the story ends is yours. It takes four minutes, needs no skill, and works with any number of people from six to sixty — which is why a hundred thousand people look for the story text every December.

How to play

1. Everyone brings one wrapped gift to the same budget. Say the number in the invitation; a range makes somebody feel awkward.
2. Sit in a circle — a rough one is fine — and everybody holds a parcel that is not their own if you can manage it.
3. One person reads the story aloud, slightly slower than feels natural. Every time they say left, all parcels pass one place to the left. Every time they say right, one place to the right.
4. Nobody unwraps anything until the story is finished. This is the rule that needs enforcing.
5. When the reader stops, everyone opens whatever they are holding.

Two practical notes. The reader should hold a parcel too, and should pass it along with everyone else — it keeps the count honest. And if the circle is large, put the slower half of the room next to each other; the game breaks down when one person is always three passes behind.

The story: A Very Wright Christmas

Read this aloud. The emphasised words are the instructions, so give them a beat. One extra rule: the surname Wright counts as a right. That is the joke the story is built on, and it is also what keeps the two directions even.

Nobody in the village could remember when the Wrights had arrived, only that they had never once managed to leave on time. And so on Christmas Eve, with the light already going, four Wrights were still standing in their hallway, having left the map on the kitchen table where they had left it the year before.

"Turn right at the church," said Grandma Wright, who had not been right about a direction since 1994. So they turned right, and then immediately left, and then right again, until the church was somewhere behind them and the road had left the village altogether.

Young Alfie Wright was left in charge of the presents, which he had piled on the back seat to his left. Every time the car turned right the pile slid left; every time it turned left the pile came right back. By the time they reached the crossroads there was nothing left of the wrapping at all, and Alfie had been right to say so twice.

At the crossroads sat a robin, facing right. "We follow the bird," said Mr Wright, and the bird, being a bird, immediately flew left. They went left. They went left again. They arrived, somehow, exactly where they were meant to be, which was the only thing all evening that turned out right.

And the presents? Every one of them had ended up in the wrong hands, passedleft and right and left again — and not one Wright minded in the least, because whatever you are left holding at Christmas is exactly right.

That is thirty-three instructions in about four minutes of reading — sixteen lefts against seventeen rights once the Wrights are counted, which is close enough that the parcels genuinely scatter instead of drifting one way round the circle. If you want a longer game, read it twice — the second pass lands differently because everyone starts from somewhere new.

Variations that fix the usual problems

• The steal ending. After the story, go once round the circle and let each person either keep what they hold or swap with anyone. Fixes the one complaint about the format — that you have no agency at all.
• Music instead of a story. Pass one way while the music plays, reverse direction every time it stops. Better for a room too loud for a reader to be heard.
• Dice rounds. Roll one die per round: odd passes left, even passes right, a six reverses everything. Works when nobody wants to read aloud, and produces more laughter than it deserves to.
• Two circles, one parcel swap. For a big party, run two circles and exchange one parcel between them halfway through. Keeps a sixty-person room from turning into a queue.

What to put in the parcels

The format has one structural requirement that people miss: every gift has to be acceptable to every person in the circle, because nobody chooses who gets what. That rules out anything personal, anything sized, and — at a mixed party — anything you would not hand to a colleague.

What works is small, universal and slightly funny: coffee, chocolate, socks that make a point, a plant, a scratch card, a decent pen. What does not work is anything expensive, because the person who brought it watches it travel to someone who does not care.

Playing it remotely

The format survives a video call better than most, with one substitution: the circle becomes the participant list, and "left" means the next name down while "right" means the previous one. Everyone needs the same list in the same order, so post it in the chat before you start.

Since nothing physical can pass, the parcels have to be digital, which in practice means each person prepares a gift that can be handed over in a message. A Telegram gift is the straightforward option — it transfers to whoever ends up holding it, and the mechanics are in how to send a Telegram gift. Do the actual sending after the story, in one round, so the game is not interrupted by fourteen people typing.

Why such a simple game works

There is no skill in it. No decisions, no scoring, nothing to be good at — and it is still the game people remember from the party. That is worth noticing, because it says something about what these games are actually for: the pleasure is entirely in the anticipation and in watching a parcel you wanted travel away from you.

It is the same shape as every other pure-chance game, stripped of everything else. The difference is that at a party the redistribution is the point and nobody loses anything — which is a cleaner version of the deal than most chance games offer. If you are interested in where that line falls when money is involved, instant win games is the same mechanic with a price on it.

FAQ

How many people do you need? Six at a minimum, or the parcels barely move. It scales indefinitely upward; past about thirty, split into two circles.

How long does the story need to be? Three to five minutes read aloud, with thirty or so direction words. Shorter and the parcels do not travel; longer and the room stops listening.

Can people keep their own gift if it comes back? Yes, and it happens often enough to be funny. Do not add a rule against it — the rule costs more than the problem.

Is it the same as pass the parcel? No. Pass the parcel has one prize and layers of wrapping removed to music. This has one parcel per person and everybody ends up with something.

Keep reading

• Christmas Party Games for Adults — where this fits in an evening, plus the gift-exchange formats.
• Christmas Games Online — more that works over a video call.
• How to Send a Telegram Gift — the digital-parcel mechanics for a remote circle.