Original Christmas scavenger hunt clues with answers, from photo clues for preschoolers to cryptic ones for teens and adults, and how to chain them to a present.
Good Christmas scavenger hunt clues point to one hiding spot only, and they match what the player can actually read. Every clue below is new and comes with its answer (the place where the next card goes), grouped by age: photo clues for kids who can’t read yet, two-line rhymes for ages 6 to 9, cryptic clues for teens, and clues for adults built on household habits and shared memories. Each set also works as a Christmas treasure hunt that walks someone from a first envelope to their present, on Christmas morning or Christmas Eve.
For party formats (a riddle trail, a photo hunt, a lights hunt), see our Christmas scavenger hunt ideas. This page is about the clues themselves, and the hunt that ends at a present.
| Age | Clue style | Clues in the chain | Hunt time | Who reads |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 to 5 | Photo of the spot | 4 to 6 | 10 to 15 min | Nobody needs to; an adult can say one line aloud |
| 6 to 9 | Two-line rhyme | 5 to 8 | 15 to 20 min | The child, with help on long words |
| 10 to 12 | Rhyme with a twist, plus one code | 8 to 10 | 20 to 30 min | The child |
| Teens | Cryptic clue, anagram, close-up photo | 8 to 12 | 25 to 40 min | The player |
| Adults | Cryptic or personal clue | 6 to 10 | 20 to 40 min | The player |
These counts are lower than for a party hunt on purpose: a present hunt happens in pajamas, with the family waiting.
Nemours KidsHealth places the start of reading familiar stories and sounding out new words at around ages 6 to 7, so the rhymes below stick to short, everyday words. Each answer is something the child walks past every day: the bread bag, not “the larder.”
Decide where the gift will be before you write a single clue. Then work back from it.
For the youngest, keep all the stops in two or three rooms. For teens and adults, make the chain cross the house and go up and down at least once: the walking buys time for the rest of the family to get the cocoa on.
The last card should send the player somewhere you can stand and watch. If the present is too big to hide (a bike or a dollhouse), the last clue can lead to a small box containing a photo of the present and the words “go to the garage,” or to a closed door where you are waiting. Skip the ribbon trail across floors and stairs, because it trips people up.
Photograph each hiding spot from the child’s eye height, the view they’ll recognize. Print the photos, glue each onto a card in the child’s color, and read the line aloud if they need a nudge.
| Hiding spot | What the photo shows | Line to say aloud |
|---|---|---|
| Their stocking (if it hangs low, away from a lit fireplace, and didn’t hold clue 1) | The stocking, with their name in the shot | “This one belongs to you. Look inside.” |
| Their favorite stuffed animal | The toy, in its usual spot | “Who keeps you company all night? Ask them.” |
| The fruit bowl | The bowl, from above | “Where do the apples and bananas wait? Look beside the bowl.” |
| The bath toy basket | The basket, with a duck on top | “Somebody in the bathroom is guarding a secret.” |
If you’d rather print than photograph, The Case of the Missing Sleigh Bell has a Little Elves level for ages 4 to 6: 12 picture cards, each with a short rhyme an adult reads aloud, in 15 to 25 minutes, so it fits a 5- or 6-year-old better than a 3-year-old. Its three levels (4 to 6, 7 to 10 and 11 to grown-up) let a 5-year-old and a 9-year-old follow separate trails the same morning, since every card carries its level badge, and a Gift Reveal card you fill in by hand tells the player where the present is.
And a last card you can fill in: “That’s the end, you followed every clue. Now look __, something’s waiting for you.” Write the gift’s spot in the blank: “behind the big chair,” “in Grandma’s room.”
Here is a short five-card chain for a 6-year-old, built from the list. Hand over card 1, the bread rhyme, at your bedroom door. Behind the bread bag, card 2 has the towel rhyme. Folded in the towel, card 3 has the Christmas cards rhyme. Between two Christmas cards, card 4 has the piggy bank rhyme. Under the piggy bank, card 5 is the fill-in card, pointing behind the big chair, where the present waits. For an older child, add stops from the list.
For ages 10 to 12, add a twist to any of these: scramble one word of the answer, or write the last line in mirror writing. The towel card, for example, becomes “I hang up fluffy on the rack; I’m the LOWTE that dries your back.” Use one twist per card. With two, most kids stall. Then make one card a book code (see the teen section). If they want harder puzzles than a trail can hold, try a Christmas escape room for kids later in the day.
Teens tune out anything that looks like a school worksheet. Come at the spot from an odd angle, and let their phone be part of it.
Two more clue types that work well with teens:
When a teen is stuck, use sealed hint envelopes, one per clue, taped behind the card. Opening one costs a verse of a Christmas song, sung in the kitchen.
Our Christmas Scavenger Hunt for Teens & Adults is built for the present hunt. Its 15 rhyming riddles make a longer chain than the table above, for a teen who wants the hunt to last, and the trail ends at the gift, where a fillable Gift Reveal card waits with the present. It comes in a Classic and an Expert level. A few of its stops are kitchen and laundry appliances, so for a pajama morning you can swap those for your own spots using the editable blank cards.
For a partner, a parent or grown-up kids home for the holidays, the best clues lean on the habits everyone in the house knows and nobody admits to.
A few more personal templates to fill in with your own history:
Use one or two personal clues per chain, since a memory the player doesn’t share is a dead end. For a Christmas treasure hunt for adults, the present at the end doesn’t have to be big: a handwritten note about the year or two tickets for something in January can carry a ten-clue hunt.
When the present is a bike or anything else too big for the house, end the trail in an attached garage. These two clues are for teens and adults. Turn the garage lights on before the hunt starts, save these cards for the last two stops, and tape them well away from the car, the workbench and the power tools.
For younger kids, use the photo-in-a-box ending above and walk to the garage together.
Give each child a color (envelopes, card stock or a dot sticker on every card) and one rule, said out loud before anyone starts: open only your color, and leave anyone else’s where it is.
Give every child the same number of clues, even if one trail is photos and the other is rhymes. Kids count, and “she had more” is the first complaint of the morning. Two envelopes can share a spot (behind the same towel) if it comes at a different point on each trail, so nobody races for it.
Make the last clue on every trail lead to the same room, so the presents get opened side by side and nobody finishes alone. If one child is much faster, make them your assistant: they can give the youngest one hint, but only if the youngest asks.
Hide cards for young children at the child’s shoulder height or lower, and never on top of a dresser, bookcase or TV stand that might tempt a climber. The CPSC’s Anchor It campaign exists because furniture and TV tip-overs cause injuries and deaths, and a clue up high is an invitation to climb. Keep every card clear of anything that gets hot (the stove, toaster, fireplace and space heaters). If a stop is an appliance, tape the card to the outside with the machine off, and put any fridge or freezer card in a sealed bag that a grown-up opens for the little ones.
As for the morning itself, a card that has gone missing overnight can be rewritten on the spot from the photo on your phone. If your kids wake at 5, use the bedroom-door start from the list above. And when someone finds a card early, let it count: they skip a step, and you don’t re-hide it.
Print or cut one blank card per stop for each player, plus two spares in each color, and keep the gift’s spot on your own list (or in a phone photo), never on the back of a card: only the last clue should give it away. Hide the cards on Christmas Eve after the last child is asleep. For a Christmas Eve hunt, hide them while everyone else is at dinner.
Holidays & Parties
Fifteen ways to welcome your Christmas elf, from five-minute setups to a full evening, plus arrival letters to copy, return ideas for year two and a plan for the night before.
Holidays & Parties
Three original letters from Santa, by age: for toddlers, for ages 5 to 8, and for a hard year or a move, plus paper, delivery and North Pole postmark notes for the grown-ups.
Holidays & Parties
Two schedules to copy (1 p.m. to midnight, or 5 to 8 p.m. with a borrowed midnight), a table of games by age, rules for the ones worth running, and what to do when the little ones crash.