This article was written by The Zillennial Zine’s fall editorial intern Elizabeth Miller. Find them on Instagram at @Lizzy_7979. If you would like to share an article with The Zillennial, send us an email at thezillennialzine@gmail.com.
One of my favorite things about the holiday season is the vast number of fun traditions. While my family has a lot of old traditions, we’ve been trying out new activities to add to our list of traditions. My favorite of these new traditions we’ve tried out has been holiday movie bingo. If there is one thing you need to know about my family, it’s that we love movies that are so bad they’re good. So, we absolutely love the silly holiday romcoms. But, to make the experience even more enjoyable, we’ve made our own bingo boards with elements of these predictable plots. We’re still coming up with ideas for prizes, but if you and your friends and family are competitive and like Hallmark holiday movies, then this tradition is for you! Here’s how to play Christmas movie bingo.
How To Play
To play holiday movie bingo, each player will need to make a bingo board (more on how to make these later). Each board should be different. Pick a streaming service of your choice and search for their selection of holiday romcoms. The sillier the title the better! My family has been making a dent in the selection of these movies on Netflix.
As you watch the movie, watch out for tropes on your bingo board. If you are playing for just one movie, whoever gets bingo first wins. If you’re planning to continue playing with more movies over the season, try this scoring system: if you get a full row by the end of the movie, you get a point! Tally up everyone’s points at the end to determine the round winner, and keep track of points. As you all watch more movies, whoever gets the most points by Christmas wins!
How To Make Your Bingo Board
Find a free bingo board template online to print out for everyone playing. In each space, write in a holiday romcom trope. Have a good mix of vaguer and more specific tropes, characteristics, and plot points so some spaces will be easier and harder to fill than others. You’d be surprised how many of these tropes show up in these movies.
Some ideas you could use about characters:
- The main character has a job in a big city
- A love interest owns a bakery
- A love interest owns a Christmas tree farm
- The love interest’s family organizes the town’s Christmas festival
- The love interest is a widow or widower
Some plot point ideas to put on your board:
- Two characters decide to pretend they are dating
- A child makes a Christmas wish
- A character has to dress up as Santa
- A character finds out they are secretly royalty
- A character has to participate in some Christmas-related competition
- A character has to stop another character from getting on a plane
Some wintery activities that might happen in the movie:
- Characters go ice skating
- Characters go gift shopping
- Characters back Christmas cookies
- Characters decorate a Christmas tree
- The couple kisses in the snow
- The couple kisses under the mistletoe
- The main characters go to a fancy Christmas party
- Characters help out at the big charity event
Some Movie Recommendations
My family tried out holiday movie bingo last year, and we loved it so much we decided to do it again this year. We have already started watching some movies. We’ve primarily stuck to watching ones on Netflix. My favorite one so far has been Falling For Christmas. Other movies we recommend are A Castle for Christmas and Single All The Way. And, if you want a story with three times the fun, there are a couple of Christmas movie trilogies on Netflix too, including A Christmas Prince and The Princess Switch.
Are you going to watch any holiday romcoms this season? What do you think of holiday movie bingo?
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