PULTEVENT
Christmas bingo game: 7 ways to play, from paper cards to phones
A family dining room in Kent, Boxing Day, somewhere between the leftover pudding and the washing up. Eleven people around a table that has had both leaves put in, a bowl of walnuts nobody touches, and the youngest grandson, nine, holding his phone like it might escape. On the TV a festive track has just started playing. He looks at his screen, looks at his grandmother's printed card, and says, very quietly, one away.
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Bingo is the rare game that a nine-year-old and an eighty-year-old can play at the same table on equal terms. No general knowledge, no running around, just luck and a bit of attention. The Christmas version keeps all of that and swaps the numbers for things that sound like the season.
There are two ways to play it. The paper way: cards with festive words or pictures, and somebody calls them out. And the music way: every square is a track, the track plays, and players mark it when they recognize it. PULTEVENT does the second one properly. You load your own festive tracks, every guest opens a personal card by scanning a QR code, and the platform does the checking. Their phones need internet. Anyone without a smartphone gets a printed card. Here are seven ways I run it, and how to make cards if you're doing it on paper.
7 ways to play Christmas bingo, with a screen or without
1 Festive music bingo on phones
The main event. You build a set of Christmas tracks at home, with a label for each that players look for on their cards. On the night the board sits on the TV. You tap a number, the music starts, and any card holding that track may now mark it. The moment a line is complete, the winner's name appears on the big screen.
How to run it. Label squares with something short enough to read on a phone: the artist, a two-word nickname for the song, or the opening words of its chorus.
No checking cards by hand, no arguments. The room sings along while it plays.
2 The quick round for children
A nine-square card and nine tracks the kids know from school concerts and family car trips. A line comes in two or three minutes, so the prize comes before anyone gets bored.
How to run it. Load a few more tracks than nine, so the cards aren't all the same and two kids don't win at once.
Children get a win early, and the adults get a warm-up round before the real game.
3 Printed cards for the grandparents
The platform prints paper cards with a sheet number on each. Grandparents mark theirs with a pen while everyone else uses their phones, and they all play the same game from the same board. If a paper player shouts, enter their sheet number in the checker and the laptop says yes or no.
How to run it. Print the cards the day before, in a large grid, and give each paper player a thick felt-tip pen.
Nobody at the table is left out because they don't use a smartphone, and nobody has to explain one to them over the turkey.
4 Team bingo for the office
Tables or departments play as teams. In each round the first three winning lines bring their teams three, two and one points, and the scoreboard carries those totals through the evening to the awards.
How to run it. Play three short rounds rather than one long one. More rounds mean more teams get on the board.
Individual luck becomes a team result, which suits a work Christmas party better than one person winning everything.
5 Word bingo with the wheel as caller
Paper cards with festive words: stocking, reindeer, sleigh, mistletoe, cracker, snowman. Instead of pulling words from a hat, type them into the wheel's custom list and spin on the big screen. Whatever it lands on, players mark.
How to run it. Keep a list next to the laptop of the words already called. When the wheel repeats a word, spin again.
The whole room watches the wheel, not the caller's hand, and even the youngest players can see what was called.
6 Full house after dinner
One card, one long game: the round only ends when a single card is completely marked. It ticks along in the background, a track at a time, between other games and the pudding.
How to run it. Save the best prize for this one and announce it early. People keep their phones handy all night.
A quiet thread through the evening that nobody wants to drop, and a big finish when someone finally shouts.
7 Bingo on a video call
Family in another country, or colleagues working from home, join by video call. You share the stage window, they see the board, hear the tracks, and play on their own phones. Lines are checked the same way for everyone.
How to run it. Test the sound in the call first. Music through a laptop microphone loses the bass, so share the computer's audio if the call allows it.
Grandma in Florida and the cousins in Manchester can play the same card game in the same minute.
Cards on every phone
Each guest gets a different card in the phone browser. No app, no account.
Printed cards for the rest
Print cards for grandparents and small children, and check them by sheet number.
No false bingos
The platform only lets a square be marked after its track has played.
Your own playlist
Load the festive music your family or team actually likes. Nothing is imposed.
How to make Christmas bingo cards on paper
Choose a grid. American bingo uses five by five, with a free square in the middle, which gives you twenty-four squares to fill. British bingo halls use ninety-ball tickets with three rows, but for a festive family game a four-by-four or five-by-five grid is easier to read.
Write a list of about forty festive words or small pictures, twice as many as the squares on one card. Each card gets a different mix of them, in a different order, so nobody has the same card as their neighbor. Mark the free square with a star or a small tree. Then print, cut, and find enough pens.
Building a festive music set
Load your tracks at home, not at the party. PULTEVENT has no built-in music library, so the set is your own, and that's what makes it fit: carols for one family, festive pop for another, a brass band for the church hall. The grid is fixed when a set is created: nine squares, sixteen, or twenty-four. One set can hold as many as ninety tracks, and the extra ones make each card more different from the next.
Playing music in public can need a license, so if you run it in a pub, a school or a church hall, check what the venue already covers.
Calling the game
Let every track run until the slowest table has caught it, roughly fifteen to twenty seconds. The chorus usually gives it away, so cue it a few bars early. Tapped the wrong number by mistake? Undo it, and the number goes back on the board while the marks vanish from every card.
"That's not a Christmas song."
"It's got sleigh bells in it. It counts."
When a line comes up, go over to the winner anyway. Give the prize in person, let the table cheer, then carry on. The second line counts too.
Prizes that suit the season
Small and silly works better than expensive. A tin of chocolates, the last cracker, the right to choose the next film, first pick from the cheese board. For the full house, the good prize. At a school or a club, keep it the same for every round so nobody feels the draw was rigged.
The honest limits
Every phone card depends on a working connection, so test the signal before the doorbell starts and write the network name and password on a card by the TV. Anyone whose battery dies can switch to paper. The word bingo with the wheel needs no phones at all.
The free 3-day demo, with no card required, gives you time to put together a festive set and try one round in your own living room. The full version is a single payment, a one-time license rather than a subscription; current pricing sits at pultevent.ru/en.
About the author
PULTEVENT was built by Ruslan Barashkin, who has hosted weddings, birthdays and office parties since 2014: over 500 events, best host of Moscow 2024 and of Saint Petersburg 2023 at the TOP 100 Awards. He made it for his own nights first. The rest is at pultevent.ru/en.
How to run Christmas music bingo on a TV
- 1
At home, choose a grid and add your festive tracks, giving each a short label.
- 2
Print paper cards with sheet numbers for guests who won't use a phone.
- 3
Plug the laptop into the television and the speakers, then test a phone on the Wi-Fi.
- 4
Show the QR code while drinks go round, so everyone has a card before the first track.
- 5
Tap numbers on the board, give every track fifteen to twenty seconds, and wait for the first shout.
- 6
Hand out prizes in person, then start a new round with fresh cards or a clean board.
FAQ
Can I play Christmas bingo on phones without an app?
Does it come with Christmas songs?
What about people without smartphones?
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See also
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