The Tidbit

For this year’s annual friend Christmas party (my first time attending!), the gang wanted to bring back a game from a few years back.

It’s called a Yule Ball, where you take small “prize” items (like candy, shooters, lotto tickets, car fresheners, bags of microwave popcorn, etc.) and wrap them in layers and layers of Saran Wrap.

Continue to wrap in different directions in an effort to form a ball. Rip off sections and start fresh to help the shape of the ball (and the difficulty of the game!)

When the ball is done, add a piece of clear tape to the end in order to keep it held in place.

When it comes to game time, you’ll need the ball, two dice, and two oven mitts. Participants all sit in a circle and the first player puts on the oven mitts and begins to unravel the ball.

At that same time, the person to their right begins rolling the dice. When they roll a double (of any number), the person in the mitts has to pass the mitts and the ball to the person who just had the dice. From there, they put on the mitts and begin to unravel while the next person to the right begins to roll the die.

Whatever prizes fall out during the mitt wearer’s unwrapping then belong to them.

It helps to have paper bags on hand for each player, as that’s where they could place their prizes.

This is a blast for a Christmas party, or even a kid’s birthday party. Prizes can rage from rated G to R depending on the audience. There aren’t too specific of directions to wrapping the ball, just take breaks in between placements of prizes so there are layers between to make it fun to continue unraveling (add time to the game).

The gals and I that put the ball together hadn’t done one before, and we just kind of started and it fell into place. It helps to have something bigger in the center (like a small package of tissues) to start the shape of the ball. We used a square package of headphones.

Happy Yule Ball!