PULTEVENT
Thanksgiving family games on the TV: 7 that aren't another trivia round
A farmhouse outside Des Moines, Thursday, a quarter to five. The turkey is a carcass, the dishwasher is on its second load, and Grandpa is asleep in the recliner with the afternoon game still on and the volume at twelve. Nine cousins between six and nineteen have taken over the sunroom, every one of them on a phone. In the kitchen, two aunts are debating whether the pecan pie was better than last year's. It's two hours until dessert, and the house is splitting into rooms.
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Quizzes are the obvious answer for a family gathering, and there's a page for that. But a quiz favors the adults, and after the third question about 1998 the cousins drift back to the sunroom. What pulls three generations back onto one couch is something physical and loud: a race, a vote, somebody acting out a turkey. That's what this page is about.
PULTEVENT turns the family TV into the game console. You connect a laptop over HDMI, put a QR code on the screen, and everyone plays on their own phone, which the teenagers already have in hand. No app, nothing to install. The phones need internet, so hand out the Wi-Fi password along with the plates. Grandpa can share a phone with a grandkid.
7 Thanksgiving games for three generations and one TV
1 The Cousins' Cup
Drift Arena on the TV: up to twelve cars in a 3D arena, each steered from a phone. Heats by age, a semi-final, a final. The trophy is whatever is on the mantel.
How to run it. Let the youngest cousins race each other first so they have a chance, then open the final to all ages.
It's the only thing that gets the teenagers off the sunroom floor and into the living room without being asked.
2 Grandparents vs grandkids horse race
The horse race in 3D on the TV, two teams: everyone over sixty against everyone under eighteen, the parents as commentators. Each team plays from its phones.
How to run it. Give the grandparents' team one extra player. They'll need it, and they'll deny it.
Watching Grandma cheer at a screen is worth the whole setup.
3 The great pie vote
Every pie gets a number on the TV, and every guest votes from a phone in a few categories: best filling, best crust, most improved from last year, the one you'd fight for. Bars grow as votes come in.
How to run it. Label the pies by flavor, not by baker. Diplomacy is part of hosting.
Every family has a pie debate. This one ends in a result on the TV, and the winner gets to mention it until Christmas.
4 Charades across generations
The charades section runs the round on screen with your own word list: one player acts, the rest guess. Mixed teams, one grandparent and one grandkid per round, with categories like old movies and school slang.
How to run it. Give each team words from the other generation. The grandkid acts out a record player; the grandpa acts out a meme.
Nothing crosses the generation gap like watching someone try to mime a word they don't know.
5 Guess the Guest: family secrets
Before the day, collect one surprising fact from each relative: who once met a senator, who was a state spelling bee finalist, who can still do a cartwheel. On the TV, each fact appears and phones vote whose it is.
How to run it. Ask everyone privately. The oldest relatives always have the best stories and never tell them unprompted.
Families think they know everything about each other. They don't, and the surprise is the best part of the evening.
6 Bowling at halftime
The bowling game plays in 3D on the TV, with players bowling from their phones. Good for the break in the afternoon game, when the football fans need something to do with their hands.
How to run it. Keep it to one frame per player. It's a filler, not a tournament.
It turns the fans' downtime into something everyone can join, not just those who follow the game.
7 Decorate the Tree
The evening's last round is a soft one. A 3D Christmas tree appears on the TV and everyone hangs ornaments on it from their phones. Plenty of families put up the real tree the next day anyway.
How to run it. Dim the lights for it and put on quiet music. The small cousins will want to go twice.
It closes the day gently and points everyone toward the next family gathering.
Races for the whole couch
Up to twelve cars at once on the TV, steered from phones. The six-year-old beats the uncle.
Pie by popular vote
Every pie on the table goes up for a ranking from phones, settled once and for all.
Grandparents vs grandkids
Rounds where age is an advantage, both ways, with a scoreboard that keeps track.
A gentle start to the holidays
End the evening decorating a Christmas tree on the TV together. Weeks early, in a good way.
Why not only trivia
A Thanksgiving table typically spans eighty years. A trivia round is built for the middle of that range: the adults who remember things. The kids lose interest, the grandparents lose patience with the phones, and it turns into a contest between two brothers-in-law.
Games where speed, luck and silliness count flatten the field. A seven-year-old can win a race. A grandmother can win the pie vote. Everyone has a real chance, and that's what keeps them in the room.
The shape of the afternoon
Thanksgiving has its own clock. The parade in the morning, the meal early in the afternoon, football after, dessert when people can face it. Games fit best in the gap between the meal and the pie, when half the family is asleep and the other half is restless.
Start with the races, which wake people up. Do Guess the Guest when the sleepers are back. Save the pie vote for dessert and the tree for the very end, with the coffee.
If the TV is booked for football
In many houses, the living room TV belongs to the afternoon game, and nobody is going to change that. Use a second screen: the TV in the den, a projector on a bedroom wall, or even a laptop screen for a small group of cousins. Or play during halftime and after the final whistle. The pie vote and Guess the Guest don't need the screen the whole time, only for the result.
Getting grandparents onto phones
The QR code confuses some older relatives, and that's fine. Pair them with a grandkid, one phone per pair. It's more fun anyway: the grandkid taps, the grandparent decides.
"Which one's Aunt Linda's pie?"
"Number four, Grandpa. Press the four."
Two grandparents who never touch a smartphone will end the evening arguing about the race controls.
Relatives who couldn't come
Share the stage window in a video call and the cousins in another state can race along from their own phones through the same QR code. It works best for the vote and Guess the Guest, which don't depend on split-second timing.
Before the family arrives
Set it up a few days before. The free 3-day demo requires no card, which is plenty to collect the family facts, prepare the pie categories and run a race with your own kids. After the holiday, if you want to keep it for Christmas, the full version is a one-time license, no subscription. Pricing is 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 Thanksgiving family games on the TV
- 1
A week ahead, text each relative for a surprising fact and set up the Guess the Guest round.
- 2
Decide which TV is free during the afternoon game, or plan to use a second screen.
- 3
On Thanksgiving, connect the laptop over HDMI and share the Wi-Fi password.
- 4
After the meal, start with the Cousins' Cup and the grandparents vs grandkids race.
- 5
Run Guess the Guest and charades, then the pie vote with dessert.
- 6
End the evening with Decorate the Tree and the lights down low.
FAQ
Does it need an app on every phone?
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Is this the same as the Thanksgiving trivia game?
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See also
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