With Christmas just a few days away, I don't think anybody's in the spirit for a serious read. Holiday season is in the air and it's all going to be fun and games from here on. There is no dearth of activities that can be cooked up to keep the family busy during Christmas. Thinking up gift ideas is just one part of the Christmas story. Shopping is of course another. More importantly, Christmas is also a great time to reconnect and bond with the entire family.

And families usually revolve around kids. We can give you some ideas on thinking up gift ideas for them. But you alone can give them the greatest gifts of all - time and love. It's quite easy actually to have some togetherness when parents and kids love the world of computers. Free online Christmas games are just one starting point.

So, in the name of Yuletide, let's hunt out some cool online Christmas games that you can play for free.

Elf Clubhouse

The Elf Clubhouse is where the elves come to rest and play. You can also join them. Northpole.com is a child friendly site designed on the theme of Santa's village. Games are just one part of the fun story. The Elf's Game Chest is full of cool Christmas online games you can play for free. It's a nice mix "˜n match of educational games and puzzles. You can play the relatively easy ones like Trim the Tree or Counting Money. But if you really want to keep your child engaged, give him the Rubik's Cube.

Christmas Cannon

The Flash cannon game is just one of the cool and easy online Christmas games you can play on this site. All you have to do is to use your space bar to fire a canon that delivers presents around the town. The Chimney Challenge is another Christmas game you can try and hit back at the tax accountants. But do miss Santa as he also pops out from the chimneys.

CBeebies

The BBC site for pre-school kids has a special Christmas section full of fun activities. Choose from the lineup of 15 games. You can start with a simple deck up of the Christmas Tree or the more musical The Big Coconut Adventure. If collecting coconuts doesn't quite reflect the Xmas theme, check out Christmas Higgledy House.

Santa Snowball Shoot [No longer available]

We stay British on the British Council site. Here you have to help the little elf shootout the fake Santa with snowballs. The only thing to be careful of is that you don't hit Rudolph the reindeer when he too runs in front of the fake Santa. The idea is to gain points and uncover the merry word at the top. Christmas Presents is a language game where you have to read clues and discover ten hidden words in the grid. All games on this site are arranged around the task of teaching a child the basics of the English language.

The Nightmare Before Christmas

The game is a bit dated, but it's the fun that matters. The game is based on the movie, The Nightmare Before Christmas. It's pretty faced paced so you have to be quick with your mouse click as Jack "˜The Pumpkin King' Skellington has to drop gifts for Christmas. Can you help him do it?

Overtime [No longer available]

Overtime is a flash game I found that asks you to be a bit more "˜involved'. The game displays an ad while the game loads but that's it. The basic idea of the game is to save Christmas by picking up an order for Santa, get it packaged and catch Santa before he traipses off.

The Nutcracker [Broken URL Removed]

This online Christmas game is just one of the online games hosted on this site. Freeaddictinggames.com has a large collection of Christmas games [Broken URL Removed] collected from different corners of the web. You have to perform a rescue act as the Nutcracker by fighting other game characters.

Santa Racers

Surprisingly, I found this flash Christmas game incredibly difficult to play as I just couldn't turn the sleigh around. The game is a racing game where you have to race against the computer and help Santa get fit for the festive season. The game developers have another Santa based game - Sloshed Santa which is also a bit tricky with the arrow keys.

Santa Games

This is a virtual Santa Claus workshop for kids and parents who have lots of activities to choose from and that include lots of free Christmas games. So enter. Use the advent calendar to countdown the days to Xmas and play a random game a day. There are lots to choose from like the always reliable and fun Brick Game and the Tetris Game.  But I went for the Gifts and Spiders game.

Xtreme Xmas Shopping

During the festive season, shopping turns into a contact sport. You have to go on a shopping sprint and try to buy all the goodies before somebody grabs them all before you. The game is played across three levels and could be popular with the gender that loves shopping.

The better known Flash game hosting sites like Miniclip and Kongregate also have online Christmas games which you can try out if you run out of games to play. I don't think you will, because as Christmas comes near, the web too becomes a bag of goodies. Tell us if you know any cool online Christmas game you like to play with your family.

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