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In this guide
A holiday gift has a property most gifts lack: it is opened in a room full of people and often used by all of them that same day. The gift that works is not the one that suits the recipient best but the one that suits the table, the kitchen or the yard where the household will be gathered.
That makes headcount the first filter. The makers print a number that answers it: a game rated for two to five players, glasses sold six to a pack, a ball bought one at a time. Prices below are in Canadian dollars, and the three together come to $47.98.
The things in this guide
A closer look at the products, who they may suit, and what to check before buying.
Original Edition · 10th Anniversary Tin
Exploding Kittens' tin edition is $29.00 from the maker's Canadian store and plays two to five people in about fifteen minutes, rated for ages 7 and up, with eight bonus cards over the base deck.
Before you buy: Five is the ceiling, and a bigger table needs a second game or a rotation. Free shipping starts at $50 in Canada, so a single tin pays standard shipping.
Price checked October 17, 2026. Retailer prices can change.
IKEA 365+ Glass · 15 oz, clear glass, 6-pack
IKEA Canada sells the 365+ glass six to a pack at $8.99, 45 cl (15 oz) and 13.5 cm tall, dishwasher-safe, which is the number a holiday table runs short of once guests arrive.
Before you buy: IKEA says the glasses are not designed to be stacked and warns against pouring a warm drink into a cold glass, so they need shelf room and a little care.
Price checked October 17, 2026. Retailer prices can change.
Ultra Ball, Medium
The medium Chuckit! Ultra Ball is $9.99 at PetSmart Canada, a floating rubber ball that fits Chuckit! launchers, and it suits the dog every visitor ends up playing with.
Before you buy: Chuckit! asks for supervised play and replacement at the first rip, tear or cut. It is a gift for a household with a dog and a yard, and for no one else.
Price checked October 17, 2026. Retailer prices can change.The number of people decides more than the person does
At a holiday, a gift is rarely used by its recipient alone. The game is played by whoever is at the table, the glasses go to whoever is thirsty, the ball is thrown by whichever cousin is outside with the dog. A gift chosen by one person's taste has to survive that crowd, and one chosen by the crowd's size tends to survive better.
Capacity is a number the sellers print: player counts, pack sizes and quantities sit on the listing beside the price. Reading them against the number of people who will be in the house is a short piece of arithmetic that settles most of the doubt about whether the gift gets used on the day.
A game sized for a mixed table
Exploding Kittens lists a player count of two to five, a play time of about fifteen minutes and an age rating of 7 and up. The tin edition is $29.00 from the maker's Canadian store and holds 56 cards plus eight rare bonus cards. Those numbers suit a table that spans a child and a grandparent, where nobody wants to learn rules for an hour.
The five-player figure is a real ceiling. A fifteen-minute round hands seats over quickly, which is the cheap answer to a bigger crowd. The other is a second copy, and here the shipping policy matters: Canadian orders ship free over $50, so one tin at $29.00 pays standard shipping and two at $58.00 clear the line. A household of strategy players will treat this as the warm-up, a role worth filling on a long afternoon.
Glasses arrive in the quantity a party needs
IKEA Canada sells the 365+ glass six to a pack at $8.99, each 45 cl (15 oz) and 13.5 cm tall, dishwasher-safe, which is about $1.50 a glass. A holiday table runs out of glasses before it runs out of anything else, and a pack of six matching ones fixes the shortage on the day it is opened and stays in the cupboard afterward.
The listing carries three notes that decide how the gift is received. The glasses are not designed to be stacked, so they need shelf room. IKEA warns against pouring a warm drink into a cold glass, and says to keep the surface scratch-free by avoiding metal scrubbers or cutlery contact in the dishwasher. IKEA takes back new, unopened packs within 365 days with proof of purchase for a full refund, and opened ones within 90 days, which covers the case where the household already owns glasses.
For the household with a dog, the gift is for the yard
PetSmart Canada lists the medium Chuckit! Ultra Ball at $9.99, in stock for shipping, with a floating rubber build and Chuckit! launcher compatibility. Chuckit! asks owners to supervise play and to replace any toy with rips, tears or cuts. At a holiday the dog is the one guest everyone wants to play with, and a fresh ball lets every visitor take a turn.
The first ball goes over a fence or under a deck within the afternoon, so a second one at the same $9.99 keeps the game going. The gift is narrow, since it suits only a house with a dog and somewhere to throw, but within that house it is used within minutes of being opened.
When the crowd is the wrong filter
Skip the headcount rule for a quiet holiday. A household of two does not need six glasses or a five-player game, and a gift sized for a crowd that never arrives sits in a cupboard. Count the people who will actually be there, not the ones the holiday implies.
Set the rule aside when the gift is for one person and meant to say so. Holidays are also when personal gifts are given, and a pack of glasses for the house is not a substitute for something chosen for an individual. The crowd rule fills the gap of the gift for the table; it does not replace the gift for the person sitting at it.
How we put this together
Built from the product pages and listings below, without test scores or results we have not measured. Specifications and prices change, so check the original page for the exact model, current price, delivery, and returns.
- Exploding Kittens: Original Edition 10th Anniversary Tin (opens in a new tab)
- Exploding Kittens: Shipping policy (opens in a new tab)
- IKEA Canada: IKEA 365+ Glass, clear glass, 45 cl (15 oz) (602.797.11) (opens in a new tab)
- PetSmart Canada: Chuckit! Ultra Ball Dog Toy 1 Pack (item 5386063) (opens in a new tab)
- Petmate: Chuckit! Ultra Ball Dog Toy (opens in a new tab)
