Last year my oldest son was obsessed with doing mad libs. We bought book after book and would do them at dinner while enjoying blueberry lemon muffins for breakfast. Now they’re even more fun to do together because they’re learning about the different parts of speech at school, so he actually knows what it means when I ask for a verb or an adjective! I thought it would be fun to put together some Christmas mad libs of my own inspired by three popular Christmas stories – the Polar Express, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, and Twas the Night Before Christmas. We’ve all read these stories before but you’ve never read them like this! Fill in the blanks and turn these classic stories into hilarious and personalized stories that will have your family laughing for hours. I only have three right now but let me know in the comments if this is something you want to see more of. I had a good time coming up with them and would love to do more for other holidays or even more for Christmas! These would be a really fun quiet down activity after something like these 12 days of Christmas games or these Christmas minute to win it games. Or you could go all themed and do the Grinch Christmas mad lib along with some Grinch brownies, Grinch cookies, or Grinch cupcakes!
What is a Mad lib?
Real fast before I give you the free printable, I just realized that some people may not even know what a mad lib is. Mad libs is an activity that I feel like has been around for a long time. To me just seems like a silly version of the idea of adding lib (or improv) but it’s one that the kids love. The basic idea is that you have a pretty typical story but the story has blanks and those blanks need to be filled in with words. Once they’re filled in with words, you read the story back and it always ends up being a funny story that sometimes makes no sense but often times is just funny.
How to Use a Mad Lib
Mad libs require at least two people and they’re even better with more. Choose one person who is going to be the one who fills in the blanks in the story. Give them the printed out story and a pen. That person then reads only the blanks (e.g., body part, color, adjective) to the other people playing. They take turns filling in the blank by just saying whatever pops into their head for that particular blank. While the story might best be read with the nose for instance, someone might say knees, and that’s what creates the madness. Keep reading each of the blanks and filling them in the story as you go, without letting the people saying words see the story. Once all of the blanks are filled in, the person who filled in the blanks should read the story out loud to the group. Be ready for some laughing as you see how the story got filled in with the random words. They’re fun, a little silly, and great for a family activity!
More Printable Christmas Activities
If you like these Christmas mad libs, you’ll love these other fun Christmas activities for kids!
Roll a snowman – this fun game has you rolling a dice to build a cute little marshmallow snowman! Christmas scavenger hunt – setup these great clues around the house to lead kids to a fun Christmas surprise!Christmas word search – see how many Christmas words you can find or see how quickly you can find them!Reindeer hunt – hide reindeer all around the yard and see who can find them all first! Christmas i-spy – a free printable Christmas i-spy will have kids looking to see how many Christmas trees, presents, and more they can find!
Download the Christmas Mad Libs
Enter your first name and email address in the form below to get the printable PDF. You will receive a link to download the PDF to your email within minutes. If you do not see the form, click here to get to it. If you’d prefer to not provide your email, you can purchase the Christmas mad libs in my shop here. If you do not see the email immediately after you fill out the form, make sure to check your promotions, spam, and junk folders! The printable PDF will include:
Two versions of a Grinch mad lib – one easier version and one a little more challengingTwo versions of a Polar Express mad lib – one easier and one a little more challengingTwo versions of a Twas the Night Before Christmas mad lib – one easier and one a little more challengingInstructions for use
