PULTEVENT
Christmas Eve family traditions and games: 6 ideas for the living room
My mother-in-law's house, 24 December, a quarter to eight. The fish has been eaten because in her family Christmas Eve is fish, always, and nobody has dared to question it since 1987. Her brother is asleep in the armchair with a paper hat over one eye. My niece, who is nine, has already asked whether she can open one present tonight, and has been told the same thing she's been told every year: after the game. Nobody in the family remembers who invented that rule. It's a tradition now, which means it is permanent.
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Christmas Eve is the evening families are most protective of. Christmas Day has a shape everyone agrees on: presents, dinner, the long afternoon. The night before is where each family keeps its own odd habits, and those habits are the thing grown-up children drive two hundred miles to get back to. So this page isn't about replacing them. It's about the hour after dinner, when the older relatives are drowsy and the kids are too wound up to sleep, and somebody says, "Shall we play something?"
I use PULTEVENT for it because the family already sits facing the TV. The laptop connects to it with an HDMI cable, the games show on the screen, and anyone with a phone scans a QR code to answer. Nothing to install. The phones need internet, so if Grandad's house has patchy Wi-Fi, check it in the afternoon, not at eight o'clock.
6 Christmas Eve games built around family traditions
1 How the world spends Christmas Eve
A quiz about real traditions answered from phones. Which country gives books on Christmas Eve and spends the night reading. What the Polish supper waits for before it begins. What a Danish family hides in the rice pudding.
How to run it. Write it yourself in the quiz builder. Sample questions and answers are further down this page.
Nobody feels tested on their own family. Everybody learns one fact they will repeat at dinner tomorrow.
2 True or false: our family edition
Statements about your own family's Christmas Eves, shown on the TV, true or false tapped on phones. 'Mum once burned the turkey so badly the smoke alarm went off.' 'Uncle Pete has never once stayed awake for the whole film.'
How to run it. Collect the stories from two or three relatives in advance, separately. Mix five true with five invented ones.
The family stories get told again, which is the whole point of the evening.
3 Which baby is which
Baby and toddler photos of everyone in the room shown one at a time. The room guesses who it is. The reveal gets the loudest noise of the night, usually for a grandparent in a knitted romper.
How to run it. Scan the old prints in November, when someone can get into the loft without it being an event.
The older generation gets the spotlight, which doesn't happen often on a night built around children.
4 The family timeline
Family events come up on the screen and the room puts them in order: when Grandma and Grandad married, when the dog arrived, the year of the caravan holiday nobody talks about.
How to run it. Mix big dates with small silly ones. The fight over which came first is the fun part.
It turns the family history into a game the kids care about for once.
5 Messages from far away
A cousin in Toronto, an aunt working a hospital shift, a brother stuck in another time zone. Their short clips play on the TV as one-tap buttons between rounds.
How to run it. Ask for the clips by the 20th and watch them all before the evening. Nobody wants a surprise in front of Nan.
The empty chairs at the table feel a little less empty.
6 One tree, the whole family
The tree on the TV is decorated by everyone at once from their phones, just before the kids go up to bed. It's the last thing on the screen when the lights go off.
How to run it. Let the youngest put the star on. Hold the phone for them if you need to.
A quiet, shared ending that doesn't need anyone to win.
Built on your family's habits
A quiz about how other countries spend this night, and how your own family does.
Everyone on one team or two
Grandparents pair with grandkids. One phone per pair is plenty.
Relatives who couldn't come
Their video messages play on the TV between rounds.
Short enough for a sleepy room
Forty minutes, then bed, stockings and the plate for Santa.
Traditions quiz: questions that are actually true
Here's a set I use. Every answer is a real custom, and you can check any of them in a minute if a relative disputes it.
Iceland: people give books on Christmas Eve and spend the night reading. The custom is called Jolabokaflod, the Christmas book flood. Denmark: a whole almond is hidden in the rice pudding served at Christmas, and whoever finds it gets a small prize. Poland: the Christmas Eve supper, Wigilia, traditionally starts when the first star appears in the sky, and many families lay an extra place for an unexpected guest.
Italian-American families: the Feast of the Seven Fishes is eaten on Christmas Eve. Germany: presents are usually opened on Christmas Eve, not the next morning. Norway: an old custom has families hiding their brooms on Christmas Eve so witches can't steal them to fly. Mexico: Christmas Eve is Nochebuena, and the big family meal is often late at night. Britain: children leave a mince pie and something for the reindeer by the fireplace, often a carrot.
Turn each one into a four-answer question. 'What do Icelanders give on Christmas Eve?' with books, candles, socks and oranges as the options works nicely because all four sound plausible.
Start with your own traditions
Before you plan any game, ask the family what they already do on Christmas Eve. New pyjamas, a walk to see the lights, a carol service, a Christmas Eve box, a film everyone falls asleep during. Keep all of it. The games slot into the gap after dinner, not in place of anything.
"Are we still doing the walk?"
"We always do the walk."
Grandparents and phones
Some grandparents are faster on a phone than their grandchildren. Some have never scanned a QR code and don't intend to start tonight. Pair them up. The grandchild holds the phone, the grandparent knows the answers about 1974. It's the best team structure I know for a family evening, and nobody feels left out of the game.
Put the font size question to rest before it comes up: everything is on the TV, big, and the phone is only for tapping an answer.
When the family speaks two languages
Plenty of families gather across languages on Christmas Eve: a Polish grandmother, an English son-in-law, kids who switch between both. Guest screens follow the language set on each phone, so the grandmother's buttons can be in one language and the kids' in another. The quiz questions themselves are whatever you type, so write them in the language the room shares, or put both on one card.
Keep the evening short
Forty minutes is plenty. Christmas Eve ends on a timetable set by children who must be asleep before anything appears in the stockings. Play three or four of the games, not all six, and stop while people still want one more round. Put the tree last, so the screen ends on something calm rather than a scoreboard.
Setting it up before the 24th
Build the quiz and load the photos and clips a few days early, in the free 3-day demo if you haven't bought it yet. No card needed. Run it once on the TV you'll actually use. The full version is a one-time license, no subscription, and the price is on 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 plan a Christmas Eve games hour for the family
- 1
Ask the family which Christmas Eve traditions they already keep, and plan around them.
- 2
Collect baby photos, family stories and short video messages from absent relatives.
- 3
Write the traditions quiz and the family true-or-false round in the quiz builder.
- 4
Connect the laptop to the TV and check the Wi-Fi on a phone in the afternoon.
- 5
After dinner, pair grandparents with grandchildren and put the QR code on screen.
- 6
Play three or four games, then finish with the shared tree before bedtime.
FAQ
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