Looking for a fun game to play at your holiday parties?? My friend Zac introduced us to The Fishbowl Game a few weekends ago and we have had a blast playing. Every time we’ve played, we end up dying laughing. It’s a great game for when you have a larger group of about 10 to 20 people.

First, have every person fill out 3 slips of paper that have one thing from each category written on them: a person, a place, and a thing.

Dump all of the papers into a “fishbowl” or something similar.

Divide into 2 teams. Team A will select a person to go first, who will try to get their team to guess as many slips as they can in 1 minute. Once team A’s minute is up, they add up how many slips of paper they guessed correctly and record that many points for the round. Then, it’s Team B’s turn. If a team hits the 1 minute mark and the clue has not yet been guessed, it goes back into the bowl. Once all of the slips of paper have been guessed, the round is complete, and they all get added back to the bowl for rounds 2 and 3. After round 3 is complete, add up the total number of slips of paper each team has guessed from each round and the team with the most points wins!

Each round has specific rules on how you can get your team to guess the word:

• Round 1: Player can use both words and actions, without saying any words that are apart of the answer
• Round 2: Player can only use actions to get their team to guess the word.
• Round 3: Player can say only 1 word to get their team to guess the clue, so they must choose carefully!

For example, if the word is “cheeseburger”, this is how it could go:

Round 1: Player could act out eating a cheeseburger, pretend to be flipping burgers, and ask “what do you eat at McDonald’s?”

Round 2: Player can only use actions, so could act like they are eating a cheeseburger and make the Golden Arches to symbolize McDonald’s. You hope that your team remembers the words from the first round, so that they will be able to quickly guess it again.

Round 3: The player can only choose one word, so they could say McDonald’s, and hope that someone remembers cheeseburger is written on one of the slips of paper!

I promise, you will be laughing by the end of this game! It is hilarious to watch people try to act out the clues and it’s also very funny to try to understand the word associations people use in round 3.

BONUS ROUNDS: In the comments below, I received ideas for a 4th and 5th round. I tried them out with friends and family…they are HYSTERICAL!

• Bonus Round 4: Player has to act out the word under a bed sheet – no talking, only movements!
• Bonus Round 5: Player uses sound effects to get their team to guess the word – no words or actions allowed. We found this round was also hysterical under the bed sheet, so you can only hear the noises, but not see what the player is doing. (It’s also hard to make sound effects without acting a little bit, so the bed sheet masks movement.)