PULTEVENT
New Year's Eve family games at home: 7 rounds that get you from dinner to midnight
Half past eight on December 31st, and the living room looks like a waiting room. My nephew, who is nine, has asked what time it is four times since dessert. Grandad is asleep in the good chair with a paper hat still on. My sister is scrolling through photos of other people's parties. Then the TV goes from the weather to a bare pine tree on a dark blue background, and my niece holds up her phone and says, "Wait, I can put a star on that?" Nobody asks the time again until eleven.
★ Free for the first 3 days, no card required
The hard part of New Year's Eve at home with kids is not midnight. It is the three and a half hours before it, when the food is finished, the fireworks outside have not started and everybody is tired in a slightly different way. The eight-year-old wants to run. The fourteen-year-old wants to be left alone with a phone. The grandparents want to be included without being made to stand up.
I host events for a living, and for my own family I use the tool I built for work. PULTEVENT runs from a laptop browser plugged into the TV. The games appear on the big screen, and everyone plays on their own phone after scanning a QR code: no app to install, no account to create. Phones need internet, so the home Wi-Fi password goes on the fridge before anything else.
Below is the running order I actually use at home, seven rounds from the end of dinner to the countdown, with notes on who each one is really for.
7 family rounds for New Year's Eve, roughly in the order I run them
1 Decorate the Tree together
A bare tree appears on the TV. Everyone picks ornaments, lights and a star on their phone and sends them up, and the tree fills in as the room watches. There is no winner, just one tree the whole family made.
How to run it. Start with this one right after dinner. Let the youngest child hold a parent's phone and choose; the parent only does the tapping.
It teaches everyone how the QR code works without any pressure, and the littlest ones get their moment before they fade.
2 The Horse Race
Each player has a horse on the screen and makes it run by tapping on the phone. Fast fingers win. It lasts about a minute, which is exactly the attention span of a seven-year-old at nine at night.
How to run it. Run it three times: kids only, grown-ups only, then everybody. Grandad can join the final with one thumb.
It burns off energy without anybody leaving the sofa, and the kids will beat the adults, which they love.
3 The family year quiz
Questions you write yourself about your own year: where did we go in August, what did the dog eat in March, who lost a tooth at the zoo. Everyone answers on their phone and the scores go up on screen.
How to run it. Write it on the 30th. Add a photo to every question so the younger kids can guess from the picture if they cannot read fast.
It turns the year into a story the kids helped write, and the grandparents learn things they had missed.
4 Charades, generations mixed
The laptop shows a word or a phrase to the person acting it out, and the TV shows the timer. Teams are mixed: one kid, one parent, one grandparent in each.
How to run it. Keep the words concrete for small children: snowman, penguin, brushing teeth. Save the tricky ones for the teenagers.
It is the one round where nobody needs a phone, which gives the batteries and the eyes a rest.
5 Karaoke battle, kids against grown-ups
Two sides, one microphone or none at all, lyrics on the TV. The rest of the family votes from their phones for who sang better, and the bars move live on screen.
How to run it. Let each side pick its own songs ten minutes before. Give the losing side the right to choose the next snack.
Parents singing badly in front of their children is a New Year's Eve tradition worth keeping.
6 Drift Arena, the late-night decider
Up to twelve little cars on the TV, each steered from someone's phone. They slide around an arena, bump into each other and try to stay on track.
How to run it. Play it around eleven, when the younger kids are either asleep or wide awake and restless. Give each car a family nickname.
It is the only game I know that a teenager and a great-aunt will both ask to play again.
7 The countdown and the family splash
At a quarter to twelve the TV switches to a timer counting down to midnight. At zero, a photo of your family with the new year's number on it, and fireworks and confetti on top.
How to run it. Take the photo for the splash earlier in the evening, with everyone in paper hats. Type the caption before dinner so you are not fiddling at 11:58.
You get a real midnight moment in the living room, and the photo is the one that ends up on the grandparents' fridge.
Phones become controllers
The teenager who will not put the phone down is suddenly your most active player. Every guest joins by QR code.
Nobody needs to read small print
Questions and scores sit on the TV, big enough for Grandma to follow from across the room.
Short rounds, long evening
Each game takes ten to twenty minutes, so you can stop for snacks, bedtimes and the neighbor's fireworks.
A proper countdown on screen
A timer to midnight on the TV, then confetti and fireworks effects over your own family photo.
Plan the night around the youngest child
The smallest person in the room decides your schedule, whether you like it or not. If a five-year-old is going to bed at nine, the games they care about need to happen between dinner and half past eight. Decorate the Tree and the Horse Race work for them; the quiz and the karaoke can wait for the older crowd.
One trick I use: put the youngest on the splash screen too. A photo of them in pajamas holding a sparkler goes up at bedtime with a caption like "Goodnight from Lily, see you next year." They go to bed feeling part of the countdown, not excluded from it.
Then the house gets a second wind.
Grandparents without smartphones
Not every grandparent carries a phone that can scan a code, and some who can would rather not. That is fine. Pair them with a grandchild and one phone between them. The child taps, the grandparent decides. In my experience this pairing wins the quiz more often than it has any right to.
For the rounds without phones, charades and the karaoke vote from the sofa, grandparents play exactly as they always have.
Midnight in London, midnight in New York
If your kids will not make it to midnight, borrow someone else's. In the eastern US, midnight in the UK arrives at 7pm, and plenty of families run their countdown then. In Britain, some families do the same with an earlier time zone to the east. Set the timer on screen for whatever hour you choose, write the city on the splash caption, and nobody under ten will argue.
"Is it really New Year?"
"It is in London."
What you need on the living room side
A laptop, a TV with a free HDMI port and a cable long enough to reach the sofa end of the room. The host console runs in the laptop's browser, and the TV becomes the second screen. Test it on the afternoon of the 31st, not at 8pm with everyone watching.
Everyone playing from a phone needs internet. Home Wi-Fi is usually fine for a family, but if relatives are staying over, give them the password when they arrive rather than in the middle of a round. Charge the phones during dinner.
The host console is available in English, and each guest's screen follows the language their phone is set to. That helps if a grandparent or a visiting cousin is more comfortable in another language. You can switch it off if you want everyone on the same one.
Family members who are far away
An aunt in another country can still join. Share the stage window in any video call, and she sees the same TV picture you do. She scans the QR code from her screen with her phone and plays along, answering the quiz in real time. Put her on the karaoke team she would have been on anyway.
Short video messages work too. Ask relatives who cannot call at midnight to film thirty seconds in advance, and play the clips during the break between rounds.
Trying it before the 31st
The free demo lasts 3 days and needs no card. Start it on the 30th, build your family quiz, load the photos and try one Horse Race with the kids so they know the drill on the night. After that it is a one-time licence with no subscription; 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 run New Year's Eve family games on the TV
- 1
On the 30th, write ten or twelve quiz questions about your family's year and add a photo to each.
- 2
Pick a family photo for the midnight splash screen and type the caption with the new year's number.
- 3
On the afternoon of the 31st, connect the laptop to the TV and check the Wi-Fi on a phone.
- 4
After dinner, put the QR code on screen and start with Decorate the Tree so everyone learns to join.
- 5
Run the quick games before the youngest go to bed, then the quiz, karaoke and Drift Arena.
- 6
At a quarter to midnight, switch to the countdown timer and let the splash screen do the rest.
FAQ
Do the kids need their own phones?
Does it work without internet?
Can I use it on a smart TV without a laptop?
Is there a ready-made family quiz in English?
What age is it suitable for?
How much does it cost?
Can relatives join from another city?
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.
Start free