Our Christmas Morning Scavenger Hunt 2025

A few years ago, I saw the idea on social media of doing a scavenger hunt to find Christmas gifts on Christmas morning. I loved the idea and we adopted it! We already had a tradition of gifting the kids a combined gift that they opened last--we've given them things such as a guitar, a Get Out Pass for the year, a nugget couch. Now we hide their combined gift somewhere and they do the scavenger hunt to find it. I knew they enjoyed it, but I didn't realize how much until one of my daughters picked this tradition as one of her top three favorite Christmas traditions!

I've been busy making our scavenger hunt clues and I wanted to share what I'm doing for it this year.

While it's a scavenger hunt, I like to make the clues escape room-esque. They have different puzzles or hints to figure out at each stop. I do 10 clues, and the first one is always wrapped under the tree and marked for them to open it last.

Here are the clues I'm leaving this year:

Clue 1

Starts: Wrapped under the tree

Leads to: The top of the fridge

For the first clue, I wrote a little silly story that had the key words in it that would lead them to the next place they need to look ("on top of the fridge"). Then I took a piece of construction paper and cut out spaces to show only those words from the story (I held it up to a window and traced the words so I could get it right before cutting). When they open up the clue, they'll need to align it correctly to see where to go next.

Clue 2

Starts: On top of the fridge

Leads to: A bathroom cupboard

For this clue, I used lemon juice as "invisible ink" and used a q-tip to write the next location on the paper. At the bottom, I give the hint of adding heat (they can use my blow dryer) to reveal the clue. I have never tried lemon juice as invisible ink, so I hope it works like it says it will online.

Clue 3

Starts: A bathroom cupboard

Leads to: Bottom of our exersaucer

This clue will be between the towels in our bathroom cupboard (I'll make them search for the pieces a little bit). It is just the word "exersaucer" cut into strips, so once they find it, it should be fairly easy for them to put it together.

Clue 4

Starts: Bottom of our exersaucer

Leads to: Cupboard of cups

I am going to tape this clue underneath our baby's exersaucer toy to make it just a little tricker to find (the kids will have to tip it up to find it). Once they find the clue, they need to connect the dots to spell out the word "cups". This will lead to the cupboard where we keep our cups, something they'll need to figure out from the word cups.

Clue 5

Starts: Cupboard of cups

Leads to: Bulletin board

These popsicle sticks have the letters to the words "bulletin board" written on them and then each letter is covered up by a different color. If the kids arrange the colors in the same order as the paper, then the letters will be in the correct order when they remove the colored paper. I will have the pattern paper and the popsicle sticks hidden among the cups in the cupboard.

Clue 6

Starts: Bulletin board

Leads to: Bread machine

I kept this clue simple--a riddle. It will be stuck onto the bulletin board backwards to make it a little harder for the kids to find, and then the kids simply have to figure out what the riddle refers to (I made the riddle pretty easy because I think that will be more fun for them while they are so young).

Clue 7

Starts: Bread machine

Leads to: Front door

This clue will be inside my bread machine and is a simple code for the kids to decipher. They love codes (we make codes for each other all the time) so this will be right up their alley. The code says, "front door".

Clue 8

Starts: Front door

Leads to: Laundry room

This puzzle is very homemade. I really hope the kids are able to put it together and that they'll know what it is once they do. I printed off a puzzle and then on a separate piece of paper, I drew a picture of our laundry room. Then I glued the puzzle piece paper and my drawing together and cut out the puzzle pieces. I am not the greatest artist and I think I should have added some color as well so it wasn't just lines, but I will just have to learn for next time. I'm going to leave tape with the puzzle so they can tape the pieces together as they solve it and I'm hoping that helps them figure out what it is a picture of.

Clue 9

Starts: Laundry room

Leads to: Nativity

This clue is inspired by the scavenger hunts that our library often has in their kids' area that my kids love to do -- they hide little figures (like these elves) around the kids' area and each figure has a letter and number on it, with the letters spelling out something. I am going to hide these elves around the laundry room and once the kids have found them all, it will spell out "nativity".

Clue 10

Starts: Nativity

Leads to: Mom's bed

This final clue will be taped on the back of the nativity pieces. The kids simply have to find each of the four words and then unscramble them. The words will lead them to my bed, where their present will be waiting (the last two years, the scavenger hunt has ended in Dad's office, so I think the kids will be surprised). This year, their combined gift is a karoake machine, which I think all of them will love. I foresee many fun family evenings with it. I also got them some new magnet blocks to go with the karoake machine because a lot of our old blocks are starting to break or get lost.

So that is our scavenger hunt this year on Christmas morning! It has become one of my favorite traditions on Christmas day. What is one of your favorite traditions? What does your family's Christmas morning look like? I'd love to hear from you in comments below!