Christmas Candy Ball Game

What does this have to do with Seminary, you may be asking. 

This was an ideal alternative to a class Christmas gift exchange. I did not want to ask anyone to bring a gift as it may have been a hardship for a few of my students and I did not want to single out any one of my 24 students. 

However....I wanted to have a fun gift-type game. The Candy Ball game fit the bill on so many levels. It was so much fun and very different than a regular gift exchange. 

I got the idea on Pinterest. There was a photo and no instructions so I had to figure it out on my own. Scroll to the end of the photos for instructions on how to make the ball and play the game. 

To make the candy ball:

I used about 75 pieces/ packages of candy. I used all sizes and types. 

To start the ball, I used a large jingle bell elf as the center. (It was fun for the kids to hear the jingle inside as they pulled off layer after layer. The closer they got to the center, the louder the bell jingled)

I wrapped it in bubble wrap and taped it with packing tape.

Then I placed a piece of candy on the ball that was forming and wrapped it up with shrink wrap (the sturdy wrap used for packing and moving) I would not recommend saran wrap as it is not sturdy enough.

I continued this process of placing a candy on the wrapped ball until it was a little larger than a basketball.

Every few layers, I would use tape to seal up the recently wrapped layer (this made it a little more challenging and I recommend doing this)

To Play the game:

A player hold the ball and starts removing the layers.

The player on their left is rolling 2 dice as fast as possible in an attempt to roll doubles

When the player to the left rolls doubles, they pass the pan and dice to their left and the ball is passed to them.

They tear as many layers as possible while the player to their left is rolling the dice

And so forth.

As the layers are removed, the candy starts to come out. 

Players keep any candy that comes out during their turn.

This took us about 20 minutes with 24 students playing.

This was fast moving and kept their total attention.

Everyone got at least 1 piece of candy.

To make this more challenging, have players wear gloves. If you plan on using gloves, you may not want to use as much tape when assembling the ball.