The Full List of Christmas Bingo Calls 1-90
Christmas bingo calls are a modern invention. The traditional 1-90 board contains exactly one festive call (Christmas Cake, number 38), and callers managed for decades without any more. Every seasonal list online was written recently, and several big sites are running the same one. So we wrote our own. Ninety numbers, each a festive swap on the real call, plus a caller’s sheet and cards for the family game.
This is still ordinary 90-ball bingo. Only the language changes. The middle column is what you read out, and the third column tells you which traditional call it replaces, so anyone at the table who knows the proper board gets the joke.
The first twelve numbers come straight from The Twelve Days of Christmas, which saves everyone from learning them.
| Number | Christmas call | The swap |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | A Partridge in a Pear Tree | Day one of the carol. Kelly’s Eye gets the night off |
| 2 | Two Turtle Doves | One Little Duck becomes a pair of doves |
| 3 | Three French Hens | Cup of Tea makes way for the hens |
| 4 | Four Calling Birds | The carol’s own bingo pun. Originally colly birds, meaning coal-black |
| 5 | Five Gold Rings | The line everyone sings. Let the room have it |
| 6 | Six Geese a-Laying | Tom Mix never saw this coming |
| 7 | Seven Swans a-Swimming | Lucky Seven, now with swans |
| 8 | Eight Maids a-Milking | One Fat Lady takes a rest |
| 9 | Nine Ladies Dancing | Doctor’s orders, apparently |
| 10 | Ten Lords a-Leaping | The PM’s Den vacated for the aristocracy |
| 11 | Eleven Pipers Piping | Legs Eleven still earns its wolf whistle if you’d rather |
| 12 | Twelve Drummers Drumming | The carol bows out at a dozen |
| 13 | Lucky for Elves | Unlucky for Some, flipped |
| 14 | Under the Mistletoe | Valentine’s Day trades for the winter kissing licence |
| 15 | Pigs in Blankets | Young and Keen replaced by the plate’s main event |
| 16 | Never Been Mistletoed | Sweet Sixteen, festive edition |
| 17 | Nativity Queen | Dancing Queen lands the lead in the school play |
| 18 | Bucks Fizz at Breakfast | Coming of Age. The first legal Christmas toast |
| 19 | Last of the Mince Pies | Goodbye Teens, goodbye pastry |
| 20 | Carols at the Door | One Score becomes the singers on the step |
| 21 | Key of the Grotto | Key of the Door, reassigned to Santa |
| 22 | Two Little Donkeys | The ducks swap for the carol’s little donkey. The room answers ee-aw |
| 23 | While Shepherds Watched | Psalm 23 keeps its shepherd theme |
| 24 | Christmas Eve | The real thing. The date does the work |
| 25 | Christmas Day | Also real, and the biggest cheer of the night |
| 26 | Boxing Day | Third true date in a row, then the invention starts again |
| 27 | Turkey Curry Again | Gateway to Heaven closes. The leftovers do not |
| 28 | Wrapping in a State | In a State, surrounded by sellotape |
| 29 | Rise for the Sales | Rise and Shine, 29 December edition |
| 30 | Fairytale of New York | Dirty Gertie was a song too. Wartime swapped for The Pogues |
| 31 | New Year’s Eve | One more real date to close the month |
| 32 | Buckle My Snow Boot | Buckle My Shoe, winterised |
| 33 | Sprouts and Peas | Fish, Chips and Peas goes seasonal. All the threes |
| 34 | One Roastie More | Ask for More, Oliver at Christmas dinner |
| 35 | Sleigh Ride Jive | Jump and Jive on the downhill run |
| 36 | Three Dozen Crackers | The counting calls become the Christmas shopping list |
| 37 | Turkey in the Oven | Rhymes near enough with thirty-seven |
| 38 | Christmas Cake | Untouched. The one traditional call that was festive all along |
| 39 | Steps to the Grotto | The Thirty-Nine Steps, rerouted |
| 40 | Naughty or Forty | Naughty Forty meets the naughty list |
| 41 | Time for a Cracker Pun | Time for Fun, groans included |
| 42 | The Big Fella’s Due | Winnie the Pooh stands aside for Santa |
| 43 | Oh Christmas Tree | A carol title that happens to rhyme with three |
| 44 | Droopy Paper Crowns | Droopy Drawers, but it’s the cracker hat that won’t stay up |
| 45 | Halfway Through the Turkey | Halfway There, measured in leftovers |
| 46 | Elf Up to Tricks | Up to Tricks, shelf edition |
| 47 | Stocking Heaven | Four and seven, stockings by the fire |
| 48 | Four Dozen Baubles | The shopping list continues |
| 49 | Copper’s Mulled Wine | PC 49 clocks off for a warm one |
| 50 | Santa’s Half Century | Half a Century, claimed by the big man |
| 51 | Frostbitten Thumb | Tweak of the Thumb in the cold snap |
| 52 | A Deck of Christmas Cards | The card pack becomes the pile you’re late posting |
| 53 | Fairy Stuck in the Tree | Stuck in the Tree, topper edition |
| 54 | Pine Needles on the Floor | Clean the Floor. You’ll still find them in March |
| 55 | Icy Drives | Snakes Alive traded for the school-run skid. All the fives |
| 56 | Last Bus Before Christmas | Even the Shotts Bus stops on the 25th |
| 57 | Leftover Varieties | The 57 label refitted for the post-Christmas fridge |
| 58 | No Peeking Till Eight | Make Them Wait, enforced by every parent on the 25th |
| 59 | The Polar Express Line | The Brighton Line takes the season off |
| 60 | Five Dozen Fairy Lights | And one bulb out, always |
| 61 | Christmas Number One | Baker’s Bun swapped for the chart battle |
| 62 | Turn the Toy Screw | Turn the Screw, Christmas Eve assembly duty |
| 63 | Tickle Me Elmo | Tickle Me, finished off by the toy parents once fought over |
| 64 | Rudolph’s Red Raw Nose | Red Raw, with a shine on it |
| 65 | Old Saint Nick’s Pension | Old Age Pension. He’s earned it |
| 66 | Clickety Click, Here Comes Saint Nick | The rhyme was sitting there waiting |
| 67 | Stairway to the Attic | Stairway to Heaven, where the decorations live |
| 68 | Saying Grace | Saving Grace, one letter and a full table away |
| 69 | Snow Globe, Either Way Up | Same trick as the original call |
| 70 | Speech at Three | Three Score and Ten gives way to the 3pm broadcast |
| 71 | Little Drummer Boy | Bang on the Drum. The drummers’ second shift of the board |
| 72 | Six Dozen Cracker Jokes | All of them terrible, as tradition demands |
| 73 | Last-Minute Shopping Spree | Queen Bee joins the Christmas Eve crowds |
| 74 | Paper All Over the Floor | Hit the Floor at 8am on the 25th |
| 75 | The Long Christmas Drive | Strive and Strive, motorway edition |
| 76 | Salvation Army Band | Seventy-six trombones, now outside the shopping centre |
| 77 | Double Helpings | All the sevens, all the seconds |
| 78 | Ice on the Garden Gate | Number 8’s gate, frozen over |
| 79 | One More Sleep | The only unit of time a child accepts in December |
| 80 | Blanket of Snow | Eight and Blank, whited out |
| 81 | Corner Shop Run | Stop and Run, for the cream nobody bought |
| 82 | Straight Down the Chimney | Straight On Through, rerouted |
| 83 | Turkey Sandwich Tea | Time for Tea, Boxing Day service |
| 84 | Seven Dozen Paper Hats | The last of the counting calls |
| 85 | Driving Home for Christmas | Staying Alive makes way for Chris Rea |
| 86 | Boxing Day Football | Between the Sticks, fixture-list edition |
| 87 | Snow Down in Devon | Torquay in Devon, about as likely as a white Christmas |
| 88 | Two Fat Robins | Two Fat Ladies in their winter plumage |
| 89 | Nearly New Year | Nearly There, like the 30th of December |
| 90 | Top of the Tree | Top of the Shop, and the fairy’s seat. Still a full house |
Want to print the table? Click here for the PDF version of our Christmas bingo calls list.
The Twelve Days of Christmas Opening Dozen
The carol is the closest thing Christmas bingo has to a heritage. Its twelve gifts map straight onto the first twelve numbers, everyone at the table already knows the words, and Five Gold Rings will get sung whether you ask for it or not. Lean into that. A caller who milks the pause before number five is doing the job properly. Well done!
There’s even a spare bit of trivia to deploy between games. Because the carol repeats every gift on every later day, the full song delivers 364 presents in total, one short of a present a day for a year. Somebody at the table will insist on checking the maths. Let them.
If your crowd would rather not perform, the first twelve still work read out plain. The calls are the decoration, never the game.
Which Christmas Bingo Calls Are Real?
Almost none of them, and we’re not going to pretend otherwise. The traditional board gives us Christmas Cake at 38, old rhyming slang that sat in the canon all year round. December then donates four true dates. Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve are calls 24, 25, 26 and 31 by simple fact rather than anyone’s invention.
Everything else here, we wrote. The carol lines are old, but they were never bingo calls until seasonal lists like this one borrowed them. No other list is any different. Compare the festive lists on some of the best-known bingo sites, and you’ll find the identical calls in the identical order, copied from one page to the next. If a list doesn’t tell you where its calls came from, they came from another list.
The proper list of originals, with the stories behind Kelly’s Eye, Two Fat Ladies and the rest, lives on our main bingo calls page. This page is its Christmas jumper!
Funny Christmas Bingo Calls for the Grown-Ups
Once the kids are in bed, the same game runs on darker fuel, much better! Swap a handful of calls for the seasonal experiences nobody puts on a card and the second session usually gets louder than the first.
| Number | Call |
|---|---|
| 3 | Three Remotes, None Working |
| 10 | The In-Laws’ Den |
| 13 | Batteries Not Included |
| 26 | Back to the Shops, Wrong Size |
| 40 | On the Naughty List |
| 52 | Cards You Never Sent |
| 66 | Clickety Click, January’s Bill |
| 90 | Still Doing the Washing-Up |
Write your own and the only rule is knowing your table. Keep it cheeky rather than filthy if grandma’s playing; you wouldn’t want to give her a heart attack. The properly blue versions of the classic calls are a separate tradition, and they’ve got their own page.
Bingo Halls at Christmas
Here’s a fact that surprises even lifelong players. Christmas Day is the one day of the year when every licensed bingo hall in Great Britain is shut by law. Section 183 of the Gambling Act 2005 makes it a condition of every premises licence that no gambling can be offered on 25 December, so there’s no Christmas Day session anywhere, and no club gets a choice about it. The law covers buildings rather than websites, which is why the online rooms carry on as normal while the halls go dark for the day.
Don’t believe us? The Christmas Day closure rule is set out in section 183 of the Gambling Act 2005 on the official legislation site.
The rest of the season runs club by club. Christmas Eve, Boxing Day and New Year hours all vary, and the chains post their festive opening times and party sessions on their own club finders nearer the time, so check your local club’s page before setting out on the in-between days.
The older tradition was never in the big halls anyway. Christmas bingo’s natural home is the church hall, the social club and the school fundraiser, where the December session puts hampers on the prize table instead of cash. Nobody can say exactly when the hamper night started, but it remains a fixture of community calendars every December. That’s the game this page was really written for.
Playing Christmas Bingo at Home
A home game needs tickets for the players, the calls in front of whoever’s calling, and a way to draw numbers, which can be an app, numbered scraps in a bowl, or the tin of 90 balls that surfaces every December. Our free bingo card generator prints 90-ball tickets in strips of six, as many as the table needs.
Call slower than feels natural. Each festive call lands better with the plain number repeated after it, because half the table will be laughing over the first half of the sentence. A line, two lines and a full house per game gives three winners a game, and short games beat long ones when the audience has had a sherry.
Prizes want to be wrapped and silly. Chocolate coins, the posh biscuits, a scratchcard, the last cracker. At Christmas the unwrapping is the prize, and a £2 mystery parcel gets a better reaction than a tenner in an envelope. You can always give your aunt the whoopee cushion present you didn’t like!
Playing with family on a video call works too. Send everyone their tickets in advance from the generator, keep one caller, and have winners hold their ticket up to the camera to be checked. It’s how a lot of families kept the tradition going in 2020, and the format outlived the lockdowns for a reason. If half the family now plays the American game, our international bingo calls page covers what they’ll recognise.
Print the Christmas Caller’s Sheet
If you’re the caller, don’t try to improvise ninety festive calls from memory after two glasses of mulled wine. The whole list above fits on our free two-page A4 caller’s sheet, with a circle beside each number to dab off as it’s drawn and a blank second page for the house calls your family invents. Print it on card alongside a set of tickets from the generator and the whole night’s kit costs you the paper it’s printed on.