Short answer: The best Thanksgiving kids activity a New Orleans host can buy is a backyard inflatable, roughly $200 to $300 for the day. It moves 20 cousins out of the kitchen during the 2 to 4 p.m. cooking crunch and gives them somewhere to go after the meal.
I have been delivering inflatables around Jefferson and Orleans Parish since 1992, and Thanksgiving is the holiday people forget to plan for. They plan the food down to the pan. They do not plan the six hours.
Here is the actual problem. You have 20-plus kids, ages 2 to 15, indoors, with four adults cooking and no one supervising. Somebody is going to knock over a pie.
If you are the house that hosts, you already know the shape of the day. People show up at 10 in the morning and leave at 7 at night. That is nine hours, and maybe two of them are the meal.
What are the best Thanksgiving kids activities New Orleans families can set up at home?
One inflatable in the backyard, running from about 1 p.m. until dark.
Everything else you have tried is a stopgap. A movie holds a 6-year-old for 40 minutes and a 12-year-old for zero. Board games need an adult, and every adult is busy. Tablets create fights over whose turn it is.
An inflatable is the only thing I know of that absorbs a mixed-age crowd without any adult running it. You need one grown-up watching, not one grown-up managing.
Cost it out honestly:
- Standard bounce house: the workhorse, fits roughly 8 to 10 kids at a time in rotation
- Wet/dry combo run dry: bounce area plus a slide, which doubles the ways in and out
- Toddler bouncer: low walls, small footprint, for the under-5 crowd
- Obstacle course: the one that finally gets the teenagers off the couch
- Delivery minimum: $150 residential, so most Thanksgiving orders clear it easily
Split across four households, a $250 rental is $62.50 each. That is less than the turkey.
How do you keep 20 cousins aged 2 to 15 busy at the same time?
Two units, not one big one. This is the mistake I see most often at family holidays.
People book the largest single inflatable they can afford, assuming bigger absorbs more kids. It does not. A 4-year-old and a 13-year-old in the same bounce chamber is how you get a crying 4-year-old, and then the little ones stop going in at all. You just paid for a teenager-only unit.
Better: a toddler bouncer for the under-5s plus a standard bounce house or themed combo for everyone else. Two blowers, two 20-amp breakers, two separate crowds that never collide.
If you are only booking one unit, book a combo. The slide gives the little kids a lane the big kids are not standing in, and the climb wall meters how fast anyone gets to the top.
Then run it by age, not by free-for-all. Under 6 gets the first 20 minutes of every hour, 6 to 10 the next 20, over 10 the last 20. Set a phone timer where the kids can hear it. I have watched that one rule take a chaotic yard down to something a single adult can supervise from a folding chair.
Is late November too cold for a bounce house in South Louisiana?
No. Thanksgiving week here typically runs 55 to 70 degrees, and that is fine.
Two rules, though.
Dry units only. No water slides, no foam, no wet combos after the first week of November. If you book a wet/dry combo, we leave the hose off. Cold water and a 58-degree afternoon is how a party ends early.
Kids do not care about the cold. Parents do. I have set up in 52 degrees and watched children take their jackets off inside ten minutes. Send them out in a long-sleeve shirt and let them shed layers. The adults standing still on the patio are the ones who get cold, which is a good argument for the adults to go back inside.
The thing that actually shuts us down is wind. Sustained winds above roughly 15 to 20 mph and the unit comes down, and late-November fronts move through this area with wind in front of them. Watch Wednesday's forecast, not Monday's.
One more cold-weather note. Bare feet on a 55-degree vinyl floor is the only real complaint I get, and socks fix it. Tell the kids to bring a clean pair, keep a bag of spares by the door, and skip the shoes. Shoes inside an inflatable are the fastest way to tear a seam.
What does an hour-by-hour Thanksgiving Day plan look like?
This is the schedule that works, built around getting kids outside during the two windows when the house is worst.
| Time | What happens |
|---|---|
| 8:00–9:30 a.m. | Delivery window. Setup takes 30 to 45 minutes for one unit. |
| 10:00 a.m. | Family starts arriving. Inflatable already up, so kids go straight out. |
| 10:00–12:00 | Open jumping. Rotate by age: little kids on the half hour, big kids in between. |
| 12:00–1:00 p.m. | Snack break, blower off. Nobody bounces on a full stomach right before dinner. |
| 1:00–2:00 | Back on. Adults get the last hour of prep in peace. |
| 2:00–4:00 | The cooking crunch. Every kid outside. One adult on a chair with coffee. |
| 4:00–5:00 | Blower off, everyone in, hands washed, eat. |
| 5:00–6:30 | Back outside while dishes get done. This is the window people forget. |
| 6:30 | Dark. Blower off for the night, or pickup if it is a same-day rental. |
The 5:00 to 6:30 slot is the one that saves the host. Dishes, coffee, leftovers packed, and the kids are not underfoot.
Should you book Thanksgiving Day, or the Friday and Saturday after?
Friday and Saturday, if the family is still in town. Availability is wide open those two days and the calendar pressure is nothing like a Saturday in April.
Thanksgiving Day itself we run a limited delivery schedule, so call earlier for that date. The Friday and Saturday after are the easiest weekend dates I have all year to fill.
Multi-day is the real value play. If the cousins are staying through Sunday, a multi-day rental costs meaningfully less per day than booking the same unit twice, and it means nobody has to be home for a second delivery. Ask about the weekend rate when you call, not after you book.
Practically: I would rather see a family book Friday and Saturday than Thursday alone. Thursday you are cooking. Friday you are actually outside with them.
There is a second reason to look at that Saturday. Half the extended family drove in from Baton Rouge, Houston, or the Northshore, and Saturday is the last day everyone is in the same place. If you were going to do one cousin group photo all year, it happens in front of the inflatable on Saturday afternoon, not on Thursday when three cars have already left.
Lead time is short by our standards. Two weeks out is comfortable for the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving. For Thanksgiving Day itself, call three to four weeks ahead.
How do you set up when the driveway is full of relatives' cars?
Tell us at booking, and we plan around it.
What we need is a clear path from the truck to the yard, roughly 3 feet wide, and a clear level setup space. If the gate is 30 inches, say so. Rolled inflatables are heavy and they do not fold sideways.
Three things to do before we arrive:
- Park the arriving relatives on the street, not the driveway. Text it out Wednesday.
- Unlock the gate and clear the path of trash cans, hoses, and bikes.
- Know your outlet. One dedicated 20-amp breaker per blower, and nothing else heavy on that circuit. On Thanksgiving that matters, because the fryer and the roaster are already competing.
Grass gets staked. Concrete or asphalt needs sandbag ballast, so disclose the surface when you book.
What do the teenagers and the uncles do?
Give them their own thing. This is the underrated half of the day.
An obstacle course run head-to-head times out at 30 to 45 seconds, which is short enough that a 40-year-old will do it twice and long enough that he will be winded. Knockerballs are the other one. Ten minutes of grown men bouncing off each other in a Kenner or Metairie backyard is the video the family group chat runs on for a year.
Set it up after the meal, around 5 p.m., when the men are looking for a reason to leave the table.
Two ground rules so it stays fun. Adults and kids never run the course at the same time, because a 200-pound uncle landing where an 8-year-old is standing ends the day. And knockerballs go on grass, not concrete, with a 20-foot clear perimeter and nothing hard inside it.
If your yard is too small for a second unit, run it as a timed relay on the one you have. Same effect, no extra rental.
Frequently asked questions
Do you deliver on Thanksgiving Day? We run a limited schedule on Thanksgiving itself, so book that date earlier than you would a normal weekend. The Friday and Saturday after are wide open, and most families get more use out of those days anyway since nobody is cooking.
How cold is too cold for an inflatable? Down into the 50s is fine for dry units, and kids shed their jackets fast once they start jumping. Wind is the real limit, not temperature. We shut down in sustained winds above roughly 15 to 20 mph, which is the risk with a late-November front.
Is a multi-day rental cheaper than two single days? Yes. Keeping the unit Thursday through Sunday costs less per day than booking it twice, and it saves you a second delivery window. Call 504-467-9424 and ask for the weekend rate before you put the deposit down.
How much space do I need in the backyard? A clear, level area with about 5 feet of clearance on all sides, plus a 3-foot path from the street or driveway. Most standard bounce houses fit a typical Kenner or Old Metairie backyard. Send us your dimensions and we will tell you what fits.
What if the weather turns and we have to cancel? Your deposit is non-refundable but converts to a raincheck for a future date, so the money follows you to a spring birthday. Deposits are $50 minimum on orders under $500 and 25 percent on orders over $500.
Book the weekend, not just the day. Call Bounce World at 504-467-9424 or book online.
Serving Kenner, Metairie, New Orleans, Harahan, Lakeview, Uptown, Algiers, Gretna, Destrehan, LaPlace, and the Northshore since 1992.