Baby shower bingo cards

Gift bingo while the presents are opened

Gift opening is the longest quiet stretch of most showers: one person unwraps, everyone else watches, and with 20 or 30 presents it can run 45 minutes. Gift bingo gives the room something to do. Choose Gift bingo (blank cards) above and the page makes empty cards instead of word cards, with the free space in the centre if you keep it on. A 5x5 card has 24 squares to fill, a 4x4 card 16, a 3x3 card 8 with the free space.

How it runs

Hand out a card and a pen as guests arrive. Before the first gift is opened, each guest writes one present they expect in every square: "swaddle blanket", "bath toy", "board book", "something knitted". Each square is left empty, with room for two short lines of handwriting. When the parent-to-be opens a gift, a helper reads it out and every guest who wrote it crosses that square off. The first person with a full row, column or diagonal calls bingo; keep playing for a second winner or a full card if gifts remain.

Decide before you start how strict a match is. The rule that works best is "same kind of thing": any blanket counts for "blanket", but "blanket" does not count for "sleep sack". Brand and colour never matter. Say the rule out loud once, so nobody argues over a hooded towel.

The Gift tally sheet button (it replaces the caller sheet in gift mode) prints one page of numbered blank lines, 50 on Letter and 54 on A4, each with a tick box. Whoever reads the gifts out writes each one and who it came from on the next line. The bingo game needs that list anyway to settle claims, and afterwards it is the list the parents need for thank-you notes. Download PDF puts the blank cards and the tally page in one file.

Which size for how many gifts

A line needs five specific guesses to come up on a 5x5 card, so a small pile may end with no winner. As a rough guide, use 5x5 when you expect 25 or more gifts, 4x4 for about 15 to 25, and 3x3 for fewer than 15 or when many gifts are group presents. If the gifts run out first, the guest with the most crossed squares wins. Print 2 per page for 5x5 and 4x4 so the squares are large enough to write in (about 22 mm on a 5x5 card); 4 per page leaves 5x5 squares around 16 mm, too small for most handwriting.

The word-bingo variant

If the gifts are opened privately, or you want a game that does not depend on them, switch to Word bingo. The Baby things list (62 items, from "onesie" to "white noise machine") plays as a classic called game: print the caller sheet and read one item every 20 seconds or so. The Shower moments list (52 items) needs no caller at all: guests mark things as they happen around them, such as "Ribbon bow hat", "Labor story told" or "Box bigger than the gift". It runs in the background through food, gifts and cake. How fast a line comes depends entirely on the party, so pick 4x4 if you want a winner before the cake is cut. Both lists are editable, so add the dog's name, the family's favourite nickname or the nursery colour.

Prizes that are not money

Small, useful and quick to hand over: the first slice of cake, the table flowers, first pick of the party favours, a houseplant cutting, or the honour of choosing the next game. Keep them modest so the gift table stays about the baby.