Popular Ways to Entertain Your Family and Friends

You’re feeling particularly extroverted and sociable and want to invite loved ones over. But you have no idea what to do with them or how to entertain them. While you can always host a dinner, you don’t want this get-together to be another run-of-the-mill event. That’s not to say that dinner parties aren’t worth considering. You can always keep them as stand-by options for days when you simply want to catch up with friends and family over good food and lovely gifts. However, this time around, when you host, you can spice things up with activities and games. Things may get a bit riotous and competitive, but isn’t that half the fun?

For Movie and TV Lovers

Organize a Movie Marathon

Few things match the joy and collective intrigue of watching great movies one after another. During the marathon, you can munch on snacks and talk about the Easter eggs or movie mistakes you noticed.

How to spice things up:

• Incorporate themed snacks to match the movies you are watching. Say you’re watching the Harry Potter series—a fine movie marathon choice, might we add, and a great way to bond with your grandkids—you can make pumpkin pasties or butterbeer or both.
• Include quiz contests. Those often help everyone discover lesser-known facts about actors and iconic films.
• Ask everyone to dress up as their favorite movie character. Luke Skywalker or R2D2 perhaps?

Watch a TV Series Going in Blind

Some truly fun family activities come with an element of surprise. This is why watching a show nobody in your family has seen or read about works perfectly as a week-long program.

Randomly pick a show from a genre that appeals to everyone’s tastes and is suitable for shared viewing. Set a schedule to watch an episode together every evening. Family members and friends can get together at your house to watch the series or even connect virtually.

How to make the viewing sessions more enjoyable:

• Have each member share their predictions about key characters or story arcs before each episode.
• If your family or friends stay in different locations, create a group chat to discuss potential plot points or theories.

Play Movie Bingo

Movie-based games can be just as enjoyable as collective viewing sessions. In fact, you can combine the two ideas.

Gather friends and family for a lively game of movie Bingo during your next movie night. Create custom bingo cards with squares. Each square can have different suggestions, such as “hero saves the day,” “unexpected plot twist,” and “someone gets kidnapped.” When these scenes appear on-screen, mark them off. This can turn passive watching into interactive fun.

How to make this activity more exciting:

• Instead of making generic squares, make cards based on specific genres, such as romance or horror. You can also get printables online.
• Add prizes for the first bingo or a full card.

Host an Awards Night

Let’s be honest. At some point in our lives, we, or at least some of us, have stood in front of the mirror, accepted an imaginary award, and given a speech for a made-up honor. This time, though, you don’t have to play pretend, at least not the kind where you wax poetic in front of a non-existent audience. You can experience the high of award nights by hosting your own version of them. Involve your family and friends. Roll out the metaphorical red carpet, dress up to the nines, and cosplay your way to awards night glory.

How to make this more fun:

• Send out invitations styled like Oscar tickets.
• Serve punny, movie-themed foods. Silence of the Yams, Lord of the Onion Rings, and The Curious Quiche of Benjamin Button come to mind. If you have grandchildren coming over, you can serve Rosemary’s Baby food—a little macabre, we know, but apropos nonetheless.

Play Movie-Based Charades

This is a great game for when you want to kill time. Divide your friends and family members into competing teams. Write down movie titles, quotes, or characters on chits, and have each player draw a chit. Set a timer, and the team that guesses the most titles correctly wins.

How to make things interesting:

• Add your own rules to the mix. For instance, players can use props to represent objects and entities, helping everyone guess the movie names faster.
• Have players act out specific movie scenes instead of just titles.

For Music Enthusiasts

Write Parody Songs With Friends

Making parodies of popular songs is a great way to bond and brings out some of the funniest and most clever wordplay ideas in a group. All you need to do is gather some friends, pick a well-known song, and write lyrics to the rhythm and rhyme scheme of the original track. The new lyrics can feature inside jokes, references to shared hobbies, or a trending topic.

How to make things more fun:

• Set a 20-minute timer for rapid composition, use random words and theme prompts from a hat, or create teams for a full-blown parody battle. Make sure to record the performances on your phone. You are likely to find yourself laughing at the recordings whenever you revisit them.
• If writing one seems time-consuming, you can look up parody songs online.

Host a Jam Session

This is a step up of sorts from parodying pre-existing songs. Here you create your own music! Clear a space in your living room and set up basic instruments: guitars, keyboards, drums, or even makeshift percussion from household objects. You can create a shared chord sheet or a simple three-chord loop. Then, just take up roles and begin playing random tunes. No structure is needed in this exercise, only good vibes.

How to make this more fun:

• You can switch things up by choosing different genres, such as blues, folk, or funk.
• Rotate roles, rhythm, lead, percussion, and vocals to keep the energy levels high. Jamming together is a great way to improve your collaboration and listening skills, and most importantly, it gives you a good time with your family and friends.

Have a Full-Track-Listening Session of Your Favorite Albums

Certain albums are so good, they warrant a full, front-to-back listening. “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” by The Beatles, “Dark Side of the Moon” by Pink Floyd, “What’s Going On by Marvin Gaye”, and “Led Zeppelin IV” by Led Zeppelin are some solid options. Of course, the list goes on and on. You may have your own list of favorite classic albums.

A listening session is perfect to fully appreciate the genius of such records. All you need to do is create a comfortable listening environment, dim the lights, turn on stereo speakers, and put phones away to focus entirely on the music.

How to spice things up:

• Print lyrics or liner notes to share with everyone so that all of you can sing together.
• To make the collective experience better, you can follow up on these sessions with discussions about favorite tracks, surprising moments, or each member’s emotional responses to specific songs.

Play “Name That Tune” Challenge

This game evokes nostalgic memories, tests your knowledge of classic songs, and reveals surprising musical connections among participants. More than anything, Name That Tune invokes the most “aha” moments, especially when people discover new insights about their own favorite records.

To set up this game, create a playlist with songs from diverse genres and decades. Play 10-15 second snippets of each track, but not their intros or other easy-to-guess points. For instance, play the bridge or the pre-chorus to confuse participants. You can turn this into a competition by creating multiple teams.

How to make things more exciting:

• Award bonus points for naming the artist and year, and use instrumental versions of songs to make things tricky.
• Offer small prizes for winners and categories such as “most obscure guess.”

Host a Karaoke Night at Home

All you need for this is a TV or laptop with karaoke apps installed and a few makeshift microphones. Create a “stage” area in a well-lit zone in your living room. Make a song request list and encourage both solo performances and group sing-alongs for everyone to enjoy.

How to make things more fun:

• Include themed costume props, create award categories like “best duet” or “most dramatic performance,” and give small prizes to the winners.
• Include different genres and difficulty levels. Encourage the shy ones in your family to partake through supportive cheering.

For Game Enthusiasts

Jigsaw Puzzle

Few games offer the sense of accomplishment you get from solving a large jigsaw puzzle. Every facet of this game, including finding the right pieces, gauging the size of each slot, and understanding the precision required as you put it all together, feels like solving an intriguing mystery. A good jigsaw puzzle has the power to appeal, engage, engross, and, ultimately, entertain everyone.

How to spice things up:

• Make a personalized puzzle. You can decorate a piece of cardstock with a group photograph from one of your trips, then cut it into oddly shaped pieces.
• You can use these finished puzzles to make new decor items. Glue the pieces to magnets, or pour resin into molds using the puzzle pieces as the design.

20 Questions

This is a game in which a participant thinks of a famous person, place, animal, or thing. Then the others try to guess by asking the participant up to 20 yes-or-no questions. The ultimate goal is to correctly guess what the other person is thinking of within the given question limit. The player who correctly guesses becomes the next participant to propose a new famous person, place, animal, or thing.

How to make this more enjoyable:

• Use pre-determined themes for each round, such as “things from the 90s,” “famous movie characters,” or “obscure kitchen gadgets.”
• Introduce a time limit for each question or the entire game to add a sense of urgency and excitement.

Pictionary

The good ol’ Pictionary never fails to engage a group of players. Generally, in this game, a group is divided into competing teams. A member from each team is asked to think of a word (or, as is the case with charades, pick it out of a bowl full of chits) and then, with a marker, draw the word and have people guess it correctly within a set time limit.

This game can really leave you in splits when you and your friends with less-than-good artistic capabilities attempt to draw objects on the board and produce predictably amusing results.

How to make this more engaging:

• Use a random word generator for a surprise element and a better variety of words.
• Ask players to draw with their non-dominant hand or with only one continuous line.

Card Games

There are several different kinds of card games. You can pick strategic ones, such as Bridge and Canasta, easier and more popular ones, such as Rummy or UNO, or chaotic and utterly engrossing ones, such as Crazy Eights, Go Fish, and Solitaire. Picking a card game depends on the number of participants, the desired level of complexity, and the amount of interaction and cognitive simulation needed.

How to make it fun:

• Try adding house rules, for instance, the “losing a hand means you need to suck on a lemon” rule for more excitement.
• Design your cards and stick to a theme—fantasy, space, etc. And don’t forget to document the rules!

Crossword Puzzles/Word Finder

This one is a real brain teaser. Crossword tests participants’ vocabulary and cognitive abilities better than most activities. Often, crossword puzzles help trigger engaging conversations, and in many instances, even arguments. A game similar to a crossword in terms of engagement, cognitive involvement, and collective entertainment is Word Finder. In this game, participants need to discover specific words from a given block of jumbled letters. The words can be arranged horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.

How to make it more engaging and fun:

• Instead of giving the full word list, provide clues, definitions, or pictures. This means players must first solve the riddle and then find the answer in the grid
• Make use of countdown timers for urgency.

Monopoly

This is one of the most popular board games. In this game, players roll the dice to move around the board, either buying properties they land on or paying rent to their opponents.

Each time a player rolls the dice, they can buy unowned property, pay rent, or draw a card. The ultimate goal is to bankrupt opponents. Other board games you can consider are Chutes and Ladders and Apples to Apples.

How to make it more exciting:

• Present a rule that allows participants to bid on a property owned by another player. The current owner can either accept or let a dice roll decide the fate of the trade.
• Let participants build houses on properties even if they don’t have the entire color set (possibly at double the normal cost).

Apart from these, there are several other popular games that promise to bring out the competitive best in yourself, your friends, and family.

For Foodies

Host a Potluck

A potluck is a surefire way to ensure that your party is a hit. Each member of the group can bring their favorite dishes to the party. You can pick classic recipes that everyone will love. Potlucks always work, as they distribute the responsibility, cost, and effort of preparing a meal among the members of the group. Plus, as a host, you don’t have to whip up multiple dishes and guests still get to feast on a wide variety of food.

How to make it more fun:

• Ask guests to bring a dish that reflects their cultural background or from a country they love.
• Combine a potluck with a charitable cause. For instance, you can host a “bring one, give one” event where guests can bring a dish to share and a non-perishable item to donate.
• Play a game in which guests have to guess the secret ingredient in a dish or who made a specific dish.

Organize a Playful Cooking Battle

This activity involves dividing a group into multiple competing teams. Each team receives a requisite number of ingredients and is tasked with making a dish using them. The battle is timed, and specially appointed judges from the group taste and rate each team’s dishes. This challenge tends to bring out the best in participants, both in competition and in culinary skills.

How to make the battle even more challenging and fun:

• Give participants a box of unusual or random ingredients to incorporate into their dish.
• Introduce a surprise time limit or an unanticipated “speed round” in which they must finish a small side dish in 5 minutes.
• Ask participants to whip up a dish that they must paint with edible colours.
• Play “Guess the Dish,” where participants are blindfolded and made to taste dishes prepared by opposing teams. The team with the most members who correctly guess the most dishes wins.

For Literature and Book Aficionados

Create a Family Book Club

A family book club gives you the opportunity to spend time with your family, have engaging conversations, and discuss interesting themes from books.

Creating a book club is easy. Have different family members take turns to pick the book everyone will read in the club. Then, buy multiple copies of it. Set a schedule for the family book club to meet and read their respective copies together. Give all family members enough time to read and finish each chapter.

How to make this even more fun:

• After reading the book, watch its film adaptation (if there is one) together and compare the two.
• Ask each member to share something they wrote or created related to the book.

Have Your Own Storytelling Round Robin

This is similar to sharing magazine articles, but here everyone makes up original stories. You can give every member a word or a situation to pique their creativity. They can go ahead and write stories around that word or situation. What’s more, you get to listen to some interesting tales with no stakes attached.

How to spice things up:

• Instead of going in order, the current speaker calls out the next person’s name to continue the story. It’s more fun and keeps everyone alert and engaged.
• Use random prompts to kickstart each story or when another person’s turn comes.

For Celebrity and Pop Culture Buffs

Have a Gentle Comedy Roast

This is a tricky one, as it involves poking fun at your loved ones. This is why you need to ensure that everyone is on board before you begin this activity. In this roast, you can share funny, loving stories about each other. You can involve incidents that were embarrassing at the time but are now just straight-up hilarious.

How to make it roastier:

• Allow the roastee a rebuttal. Nothing is more fun than watching two people go at it hammer and tongs. But of course, keep it affectionate and light-hearted.
• Serve roasted food to keep up with the theme.

Play a Celebrity Look-Alike Game

A game of fancy dress gives everyone in your family and friend circle the freedom to become the actor, musician, sportsperson, or politician of their dreams for a while and imitate their mannerisms and general personality.

How to make this even more fun:

• Once everyone has dressed up, they can even enact scenes or real-life events from the past involving those celebrities.
• Give guests a checklist of celebrities to find and interact with throughout the event.

For Admirers of Theater and Live Performances

Host a Magic Night With Tricks

You can learn basic magic tricks on the internet. There are several videos and tutorials online that will help you with that. On your grand magic night, you can play your tricks in front of your family members or circle of friends and wow them.

How to make it more magical:

• Set up a station where guests can learn simple magic tricks.
• Whip up your own magic potion punch. Mixing a clear soda (like ginger ale) with frozen cranberry or grape juice made in ice cube trays. The “potion” changes color as the “magic” ice melts.

Visit a Local Comedy Show or Theater

Entertainment with your family members and friends does not need to be restricted to indoor activities. Visiting a local comedy act helps everyone unwind and share a good laugh. You can also go to a concert. Alternatively, the family can visit local theaters to watch plays and musicals.

How to make this more fun:

• Decide on a dress code. You could also wear matching T-shirts and click group pictures.
• Plan a picnic after the show. Ask everyone to bring something from home.

Additional Recommendations

Plan a Weekend Getaway

If your family or circle of friends loves traveling, they will love and appreciate a good getaway. You can all plan the trip: some can help create the itinerary, others can choose the mode of transportation, and some can select the place of accommodation. Make sure to click plenty of pictures and videos to document every bit of the trip.

Go Through Childhood Photo Albums

Alternatively, you can take a trip down memory lane by revisiting your old photo albums. The pictures can serve as a wonderful way to relive magical moments from your lives and have deep, engaging conversations about happy memories and incidents.