Hitster Christmas: the holiday expansion for the Hitster timeline game
Hitster Christmas is a festive expansion for the Hitster music party game, filled with the Christmas radio hits everyone hums from November onward. Here's what makes the theme tick, how the expansion works with a base game, and where to get it.
Prefer to skip the box and extra cards?
Tunigma lets you tune a round by decade, genre, and country and plays the songs itself, free on your phone.
Hitster Christmas is a seasonal expansion for Hitster, the music timeline party game from Jumbo. It keeps the same guess the song and place the year mechanic as the rest of the range, then swaps in a deck of festive radio hits: the carols, crooners, and modern holiday anthems that come around every December. It arrived around September 2025, holds more than 150 cards, and is designed to slot into a base Hitster game rather than replace it.
What is Hitster Christmas?
At its core it's still Hitster: you listen to a song, then place it on a shared timeline in the right spot by the year it came out, building a run of correctly ordered tracks. The song pool here is entirely Christmas and holiday themed. The important thing to know before you buy is that it is an expansion, not a full game. It adds a deck of festive song cards to your collection, and it is built to be shuffled into a base Hitster set such as Hitster Original. If you already own a Hitster game, this drops straight in with no new rules to learn. If you don't, you'll want a base game to go with it.
The theme: Christmas radio across the decades
The whole appeal of this pack is the sound of the season, gathered into one deck. It reaches back through the decades of holiday radio, from the old crooner standards your grandparents grew up on to the sparkly modern pop that owns the charts every December. Because so many of these songs get replayed year after year, the deck plays to a rare kind of shared memory: almost everyone at the table knows the tune, even if nobody can pin down the exact year. That is the fun of it, since a song can feel timeless and still have a very specific release date.
The deck tends to gather a few familiar flavors of festive song:
- Classic holiday standards: the old-school crooner and choir numbers that have been part of Christmas since long before anyone at the table was born, the ones that feel ageless and are genuinely hard to date.
- Modern Christmas pop: the big, glittery seasonal singles from recent decades that return to the radio and the shops every year without fail.
- Festive sing-alongs: the rowdy, arm-around-your-neighbor party anthems built for a full room at the end of the night.
Put together, the deck leans into the warm, nostalgic, slightly chaotic mood of the season. It suits the stretch of the year when the family is finally in one place, the lights are up, and everyone is a little more willing to sing along than they'd admit in July. Because these are songs people hear on repeat every winter, the theme levels the field between the resident music buff and everyone else, which is exactly what you want at a holiday gathering.
How it plays
Nothing changes about the timeline game, only the soundtrack turns festive: you play a carol or seasonal single, guess whether it lands earlier or later than the songs already on your timeline, and race to build the longest correctly ordered run of holiday tracks. The full timeline rules, tokens, and harder modes are laid out in the guide on how to play Hitster.
How the expansion works with a base game
Here is the catch worth understanding before the tree goes up. A standalone box, such as Hitster Guilty Pleasures, arrives ready to play by itself. Christmas takes the other route: it is a compact stack of festive cards with no tokens or app of its own, so the holiday songs get shuffled into a set you already own and the evening carries on as normal. The three stack up like this:
| Feature | Hitster Christmas | Hitster Original | Hitster Guilty Pleasures |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type | Seasonal expansion | Standalone base game | Standalone themed edition |
| Needs a base game? | Yes, built to join one | No, plays on its own | No, plays on its own |
| Song theme | Christmas and holiday hits | A broad spread of the biggest hits | Cheesy, catchy guilty pleasures |
| Cards | Around 150 | A full deck plus tokens | Over 300 plus tokens |
| Best for | December game nights | A first Hitster box for any crowd | Groups who love a cheesy chorus |
Since the festive cards sit happily among your existing ones, you can keep a round all-Christmas or sprinkle the carols through a broader deck when you want more variety. The Hitster editions page maps out the full lineup, with closer looks at the standalone Hitster Guilty Pleasures and the newer Hitster Flying Mic.
Who it's for
Hitster Christmas is built for the season. It suits Christmas parties, family gatherings, and December game nights, and it works best for a group that already owns a Hitster base set and wants a festive twist for the holidays. Because the songs are so widely known from years of holiday radio, it pulls in players who might sit out a stricter quiz, and the sing-along instinct does the rest. The 16 and up age rating keeps it aimed at a lively evening rather than a quiet afternoon, though the familiar tunes make it easy for a mixed-age room to join in. If your household plays Hitster and looks forward to the holidays, this is a natural add-on.
What's in the box
- Songs: more than 150 Christmas and holiday cards with QR codes.
- Type: an expansion, built to join a base Hitster game.
- App: the free Hitster app scans the cards and plays each song.
- Players: 2 to 10.
- Age: 16 and up.
- Play time: around 30 minutes.
- Publisher: Jumbo.
Where to buy
Being a holiday title, this one lands on shelves in the run-up to December and often disappears again once the season is over, so it pays to look early. What ships to your door also varies by country, and the official Hitster website is the quickest way to see which languages reach your region. One thing to keep in mind at checkout: the festive deck is an add-on, so budget for a base Hitster game alongside it if you don't own one yet. A few verified listings to start from:
- Netherlands: the Dutch expansion runs around €13 at Intertoys (€13.99), bol.com (around €12.99), and MediaMarkt.
- Germany: the German edition is listed on Amazon.de.
Prices depend on the retailer and your region, so it's worth comparing a few listings before you buy, and checking early in the season while it's in stock.
Prefer to play digitally?
If it's the guess the song and place the year timeline game you're after, but you'd rather skip the box, the extra cards, and the setup, you can play the same style of game right on your phone. Tunigma plays the songs itself, with no cards to scan and no Spotify, Apple Music, or other streaming app or subscription, and it's a free download. You pick the mood yourself, filtering by decade, genre, and country, so it fits a holiday gathering just as well as any other night. For more on using it over the holidays, see the Christmas music game page. There's also a fuller look on the Hitster alternative page and a wider rundown of the best Hitster alternatives.
Coming soon
Frequently asked questions
Is Hitster Christmas a standalone game or an expansion?
An expansion. Think of it as a festive top-up rather than a game in its own right: more than 150 holiday song cards that fold into a Hitster set you already have, not a box you can open and play cold.
Do you need a base game to play it?
Yes. The holiday cards are meant to join a base Hitster set like Hitster Original. Owners of any Hitster game can simply shuffle them in; if this is your first Hitster purchase, pick up a base game to pair with it.
What kind of songs are in it?
Christmas and holiday radio hits across the decades, from classic crooner and choir standards to modern festive pop and rowdy party sing-alongs. The rules are unchanged, so the whole difference is the festive song pool.
How many cards does it have?
More than 150 cards, each with a QR code you scan through the free Hitster app to play its song.
How many people can play?
Anywhere from 2 to 10 people can join in, with a 16 and up age guide and rounds that wrap up in roughly half an hour, which fits neatly into a busy holiday evening.
Do you need Spotify to play?
Downloading the Hitster app costs nothing, but the festive tracks stream through a connected music service to play in full, so in practice a streaming account is what lets you hear every carol from start to finish.
When can you play it?
Any time, though the festive song pool suits the holiday season. It's a seasonal release, so it tends to appear in shops ahead of Christmas and can sell through afterward.
Is there a fully digital Christmas timeline game?
The boxed expansion runs on cards and the Hitster app. For a fully digital timeline game with no cards to scan and no streaming subscription, Tunigma is a separate app that plays the songs itself and works well for a holiday gathering. See the Christmas music game page for more.
Hitster is a trademark of its respective owner. Tunigma is not affiliated with or endorsed by Hitster.