PULTEVENT
Christmas party games for kids indoors: 7 games for the TV
Twenty past four on the last Saturday before Christmas, and it's already dark outside. Eleven children are in my sister-in-law's living room, three of them in reindeer antlers, one in a full elf costume he refuses to take off even though he is visibly boiling. The mums are in the kitchen with mulled wine. A seven-year-old called Freddie has asked me, for the fourth time, when the games start. The laptop is on the piano stool and the TV is showing a snowy tree with 'Freddie's Christmas Party' written across it in gold letters. He hasn't noticed it yet. When he does, he goes quiet for about five seconds, which for Freddie is a personal best.
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An indoor Christmas party for kids has one enemy, and it isn't the weather. It's the gap. Ten minutes between one activity and the next is long enough for two boys to start wrestling behind the sofa and for someone's little sister to cry because she didn't get the green paper plate. The trick is having the next game ready on the screen before the last one has quite finished.
PULTEVENT runs from a laptop browser connected to the TV by an HDMI cable, or to a projector in a church hall or community center. The games appear on the big screen, and the ones that need phones use a QR code, with no app and no sign-up. Most kids under twelve don't have a phone, so in practice each team shares one, usually a parent's. Those phones need internet. Several games below need no phones at all.
7 indoor Christmas games for kids, in the order I'd play them
1 The welcome screen
As children arrive they see their party on the TV: a Christmas background or a photo, a caption with the host child's name or 'Class 3 Christmas Party', and falling confetti or fireworks on top when you press a button.
How to run it. Edit the caption the night before. Keep the confetti button for the moment the last guest walks in.
Kids arrive in waves over twenty minutes. The screen gives the early ones something to point at while you take coats.
2 Decorate the Tree
One big tree on the TV and every team decorates it at once from their phone. Baubles, tinsel, a star on top. The tree fills up in real time and everyone can see which ornaments are theirs.
How to run it. Give each team a grown-up holding the phone and let the kids choose what goes on. Younger ones love pointing and shouting 'that one'.
It's the easiest game to start with because nobody can lose. By the end there's a tree the whole room made together.
3 Christmas charades
A word appears on the screen for the actor only while the team faces away. Snowman, reindeer, wrapping a present, a sleigh stuck on a roof. The team guesses against a timer.
How to run it. Put the TV behind the guessing team. For the smallest kids, let two actors perform together.
Children who can't read quickly yet still do well: they mime, the older ones guess.
4 Horse Race
A 3D race on the TV where each team has a horse and plays from their shared phone to push it along. The room shouts at the screen the way adults do at the real thing.
How to run it. Name the horses after reindeer before you start. Dasher against Blitzen is a rivalry that lasts all evening.
It turns shared phones into a team sport. Nobody sits still for it.
5 The Christmas dance-off
Music on, kids dance, the grown-ups judge. The dance battle screen shows who's up next and keeps the round moving, so you're not refereeing and choosing songs at the same time.
How to run it. Play this before food, not after. A dance-off straight after chocolate log is how carpets get ruined.
Half an hour indoors builds up a lot of fidget. This is where it goes.
6 Christmas quiz in teams
Short questions, four answers each, tapped on the team's phone. How many reindeer pull the sleigh in the famous poem, what a robin's breast looks like, what you traditionally leave out for Santa.
How to run it. Write your own in the quiz builder, pitched at the youngest child in the room. The ready-made quiz decks are mostly in Russian for now.
It calms the room down after the dancing and gives the bookish kids their moment.
7 The medal ceremony
The team scoreboard has been counting all afternoon. At the end it runs an awards ceremony: special prizes first, then third, second and first place, with fanfare and confetti on the screen.
How to run it. Invent a special award for every team that didn't reach the podium: best tree, loudest cheering, best elf costume.
Kids remember whether they got called up. Make sure all of them did.
Teams share one phone
Five kids, one grown-up's phone, one team. Nobody gets left out because they don't own a phone yet.
Their names on the screen
A welcome screen with the host child's name or the group's name gets more attention than any balloon arch.
Games that burn energy
Dancing, races on screen, charades. The quiet games go after the cake, not before.
Medals at the end
The scoreboard ends with a proper ceremony, so every team gets called up for something.
How many kids, how much time
For a living room, eight to fifteen children is comfortable. Four teams of three or four works well, with one adult per team holding the phone. In a church hall or community center you can go to thirty or forty kids, but then you want a projector, a microphone and a second adult who does nothing but keep teams in their corners.
Plan for about ninety minutes of games in a two-and-a-half-hour party. The rest is food, presents, a visit from someone with a white beard and at least one trip to the bathroom that takes twenty minutes and involves a lost shoe.
Mixing ages without tears
The hardest party is the one with a four-year-old and an eleven-year-old in the same team. Give the older kids a job: they read the question out, they hold the phone, they're team captain. Give the little ones the fun part: pressing the button, doing the mime, choosing the bauble.
In the quiz, mix easy questions in with harder ones so the scores stay close. A team that's forty points behind by the third round stops trying, and then starts climbing the curtains.
A running order that works
Welcome screen as people arrive. Decorate the Tree once most of them are there. Charades, then the Horse Race, then the dance-off to use up the last of the energy. Food. The quiz while they're still sitting down with plates. Medals, party bags, coats.
"Can we do the horses again?"
"After cake."
Keep a second Horse Race in your pocket. You'll need it for the twenty minutes between the first parent arriving to collect and the last one.
What you need in the room
A laptop, a TV or projector with an HDMI input, a cable long enough to reach, and speakers loud enough to beat eleven children. The TV's own speakers usually aren't. A small portable speaker plugged into the laptop is enough for a living room.
Wi-Fi for the phones. Check the password on the fridge before the party starts and put it somewhere adults can see it. If the connection drops, charades, the dance-off and the welcome screen still run from the laptop, so you're never left with nothing.
For schools, clubs and Sunday schools
The same set works for a Scout troop, a football club's Christmas social or a church party after the nativity. Swap the child's name on the welcome screen for the group's name, and make teams by table or by age group. If some families would rather their children weren't photographed, skip the photo background and use one of the ready-made ones.
Trying it before the party
The free 3-day demo needs no card. Spend twenty minutes one evening setting up the welcome screen and the quiz, and play the Horse Race once with your own family to see how it looks on your TV. The full version is a one-time license with no subscription; pricing 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 run an indoor Christmas party for kids on the TV
- 1
Write the welcome caption and a short quiz pitched at the youngest guest.
- 2
Connect the laptop to the TV or projector and a speaker, and test the sound.
- 3
Check the Wi-Fi on a phone and split the kids into teams with one adult each.
- 4
Start with Decorate the Tree, then charades, the Horse Race and the dance-off.
- 5
Break for food, then play the quiz while everyone is seated.
- 6
Finish with the medal ceremony and make sure every team gets a special award.
FAQ
Do the kids need their own phones?
What age is this for?
Does anyone have to install an app?
Can I use a projector in a hall?
Is there a ready-made kids' Christmas quiz?
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How much does it cost?
See also
Run brighter events — with PULTEVENT
All audience interactions, a second screen and timing in one app. Guests join by QR — internet is needed for you and for them.
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