Thanksgiving games for the whole family, from the kids' table up
The best Thanksgiving family games are short, need nothing more than paper and pens, and are about the family itself, so the grandparents and the nine year old start on level terms.
Thanksgiving has an awkward shape for games. There is a long stretch before the meal while the bird is resting and everyone is hungry, then the meal itself, then a slump after pie where half the room is asleep and the other half is watching football.
The games below are sorted for those gaps, with a table to pick by group size and time, full rules for each one, and twenty five trivia questions with the answers for when the table wants something to argue about that is not politics.
When to play, and when not to
The window before dinner is for movement and noise: children who have been told to stay clean, cousins who have not seen each other since last year, an uncle hovering by the kitchen. Give them something physical or something quick.
During the meal, anything that needs people to leave their seats is doomed. A thankful jar, a question passed round the table or a round of trivia between courses all work because nobody has to move.
After pie is where the best games of the day happen, if you catch it early. Wait until the dishwasher is loaded and the room has lost its momentum, and you have lost the room too. Announce the first game while the plates are still out.
Pick a game by group size and time
Group sizes are where the game works best, not hard limits.
Game
Group size
Time
Best moment
The thankful jar
6 to 30
20 minutes
At the table, before or after the meal
Family survey says
8 to 40, two teams
30 minutes
After pie
Tablecloth Pictionary
4 to 12
20 minutes
Waiting for the turkey
The gratitude alphabet
4 to 15
10 minutes
At the table
Who said it
6 to 25
20 minutes
After pie
Two truths and a lie, family history
5 to 20
20 minutes
Before the meal
Baby photo line up
10 to 40
15 minutes
Any time, runs in the background
Turkey hunt
Kids, any number
15 minutes
Before the meal
Cranberry spoon relay
6 to 20, teams
10 minutes
Before the meal
Blind pie ranking
4 to 20
15 minutes
Dessert
Turkey bowl
6 to 20
45 minutes
Morning, outdoors
Halftime predictions
4 to 30
All afternoon
During the football
Thanksgiving trivia
4 to 40, teams
25 minutes
Between courses or after pie
How to play each one
01
The thankful jar
Players6 to 30Time20 minutesNeedsA jar, slips of paper, pens
As guests arrive, each writes one thing they are thankful for this year on a slip, unsigned, and drops it in the jar. At the table, someone reads them out one at a time and everyone guesses who wrote it. It turns the "go round and say what you're thankful for" ritual, which teenagers loathe, into a guessing game they will actually play.
Tip: Ask for something specific to this year. "My family" is unguessable. "That the dog finally stopped eating socks" is not.
02
Family survey says
Players8 to 40 in two teamsTime30 minutesNeedsA survey sent out the week before, a pad to keep score
A week ahead, text five or six questions to everyone coming: name a side dish that should be banned, name something Grandpa says every year, name the worst job in the kitchen. Tally the answers. On the day, two teams take turns guessing the most popular answers, Family Feud style, with three wrong guesses handing the question to the other side.
Tip: The questions about your own family always beat the generic ones. Keep one about the dog.
03
Tablecloth Pictionary
Players4 to 12Time20 minutesNeedsBrown paper over the table, felt tips
Cover the table in brown paper before it is laid. While everyone waits for the turkey, teams take turns drawing Thanksgiving words on their patch of tablecloth: pilgrim, gravy boat, food coma, the parade. One minute each, no letters, no numbers. By the time the food arrives the table is decorated.
04
The gratitude alphabet
Players4 to 15Time10 minutesNeedsNothing
The first player says "I'm thankful for..." and something beginning with A. The next repeats that, then adds B, and so on round the table. Forget one and you are out. It is the old "I went to market" memory game, and small children are frighteningly good at it.
05
Who said it
Players6 to 25Time20 minutesNeedsA list of quotes collected in advance
Gather ten or so things family members have genuinely said, from the family chat, old cards or memory. Read each aloud and the table guesses who said it. Include at least one from someone who is sure they have never said anything embarrassing in their life.
06
Two truths and a lie, family history edition
Players5 to 20Time20 minutesNeedsNothing
Each player tells three short stories from their own past, two true and one invented. The table votes on the lie. Grandparents are lethal at this, partly because nobody knows what they got up to in 1971 and partly because they have had decades to perfect a straight face.
07
Baby photo line up
Players10 to 40Time15 minutes, runs in the backgroundNeedsA baby or childhood photo from each guest
Collect a baby photo from each guest beforehand, number them and pin them up. Everyone gets a card and writes who they think each baby is. Announce the results after dessert. For big gatherings with in-laws who have never seen each other's childhoods, this is the one everyone crowds round.
08
Turkey hunt
PlayersChildren, any numberTime15 minutesNeedsPaper turkeys, one small prize
Cut out twenty paper turkeys, or trace round small hands and give them feathers, and hide them around the house or garden. Mark one as the golden turkey. The children hunt, and whoever finds the golden one wins a prize, while everybody gets something for taking part.
09
Cranberry spoon relay
Players6 to 20 in teamsTime10 minutesNeedsSpoons, a bag of fresh cranberries, two bowls
Teams line up. The first player carries three cranberries on a spoon, held in their teeth or hand depending on age, to a bowl across the room and back, then hands over the spoon. Drop one and you start again. Fresh cranberries bounce, which makes it much harder and more entertaining than it sounds.
10
Blind pie ranking
Players4 to 20Time15 minutesNeedsAt least three pies, numbered slivers
Cut a small sliver of each pie and number them. Everyone tastes blind and ranks them, then guesses which one is shop bought. It flatters whoever made the pies and ruins whoever insisted the bought one was homemade.
11
Turkey bowl
Players6 to 20Time45 minutesNeedsA football, a garden or park, something to mark the ends
The traditional morning game of touch or flag football. Split mixed ages across both teams, make anyone over fifty a permanent quarterback, and set a hard stop time so everyone is back and showered before the food. Score with a pumpkin pie on the line if you want it taken seriously.
Tip: Touch only. Nobody wants to explain a broken wrist to the in-laws over the stuffing.
12
Halftime predictions
Players4 to 30TimeAll afternoonNeedsA card per person
Before kickoff, everyone fills in a card: final score, first team to score, how many times someone will shout at the referee, whether the dog steals anything. Check the cards at halftime and at the end. It gives the non-football fans a reason to watch, and a reason to cheer against someone.
Twenty five Thanksgiving trivia questions and answers
25 questions
Read them between courses or play them as a team round after pie. Answers are underneath, so the reader should not be sitting next to anyone competitive.
In which year did the Pilgrims hold their harvest feast with the Wampanoag?
1621.
What was the name of the ship that carried the Pilgrims across the Atlantic?
The Mayflower.
Where did the Pilgrims found their colony?
Plymouth, in what is now Massachusetts.
Which Wampanoag leader attended the 1621 feast with around ninety of his men?
Massasoit, also known as Ousamequin.
Which Patuxet man, who spoke English, helped the colonists survive?
Tisquantum, better known as Squanto.
Roughly how many days did the 1621 feast last?
About three days.
Which president proclaimed a national day of Thanksgiving in 1863?
Abraham Lincoln.
Which writer campaigned for years to make Thanksgiving a national holiday, and also wrote "Mary Had a Little Lamb"?
Sarah Josepha Hale.
Which president moved Thanksgiving a week earlier in 1939, earning the nickname "Franksgiving"?
Franklin D. Roosevelt.
On which Thursday of November does Thanksgiving fall in the United States?
The fourth.
When is Thanksgiving celebrated in Canada?
The second Monday in October.
In which year was the first Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade held?
1924.
Which NFL team has hosted a Thanksgiving game in most years since 1934?
The Detroit Lions.
Which other NFL team traditionally hosts a Thanksgiving game?
The Dallas Cowboys.
What is a male turkey called?
A tom, or a gobbler.
What is a baby turkey called?
A poult.
What is the fleshy flap that hangs over a turkey's beak called?
The snood.
Which Founding Father wrote that the turkey was a more respectable bird than the bald eagle?
Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to his daughter.
Can wild turkeys fly?
Yes, in short bursts. Domestic turkeys are too heavy.
Which president made the turkey pardon an official annual ceremony in 1989?
George H. W. Bush.
Which US state grows the most cranberries?
Wisconsin.
What is a turducken?
A chicken stuffed inside a duck, stuffed inside a turkey.
The song "Over the River and Through the Wood" was originally a poem about which holiday?
Thanksgiving. Lydia Maria Child wrote it in 1844.
In Friends, who dances with a turkey on her head to cheer up Chandler?
Monica.
In A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, what do Snoopy and Woodstock serve instead of turkey?
Toast, popcorn, pretzels and jelly beans.
The single best Thanksgiving game move: announce it before anyone stands up from the table. Once the first person heads for the sofa, the room goes with them and the day is effectively over.
Quizriella
A quiz about the family, written by the family
General trivia is the same round in every house. A quiz about your own relatives cannot be revised for, and whoever gets their own mother's maiden name wrong will hear about it every November from now on.
Quizriella builds that quiz without anyone having to write it alone. Send one invite code to the family group chat, everyone writes questions about the others in secret on their own phone, and it comes back as a game show the host runs from a phone or the TV, with hot seats, a wheel of dares and a podium at the end.
Players join in a browser, no app to install and no account needed
Big families can be paired into teams automatically, mixing ages
Free with avatars, with optional paid AI photos of the players
Games that run in two teams or in the background scale best: a family survey in the style of Family Feud, a baby photo line up, halftime prediction cards and a trivia round in teams. Anything where one person performs at a time, such as charades, starts to drag once there are more than about fifteen people.
The thankful jar, the gratitude alphabet and a trivia round all work without anyone leaving their seat. They suit the gap between courses, when people are full but still sitting down.
Two truths and a lie with family history, "who said it" using real family quotes, blind pie ranking and halftime predictions. Adults enjoy games where they know something the others do not, so anything built on family knowledge beats generic party games.
Give them something physical before the meal, such as a turkey hunt or a cranberry spoon relay, and let them draw on a paper tablecloth while they wait. At the table, put them in a trivia team with an adult so they get the questions about Snoopy and the adult gets the ones about 1621.
Fifteen to twenty five is right for a family table, which takes around twenty minutes. Play in teams and mix easy questions with hard ones, so the children and the history buffs both have something to answer.
The gratitude alphabet, two truths and a lie, and a trivia round read from this page need nothing at all. Tablecloth Pictionary needs a roll of brown paper and some felt tips, which is about as much preparation as anyone has time for on the day.
Yes. Quizriella lets relatives write questions about each other in secret on their phones before the day, then the host presents the finished game show from a phone or shares a link that opens on the TV browser. It is free to play with avatars.
Hot seatBuzzersWheel of fateBreaking news
Send the invite code before the turkey goes in
Get the family writing questions about each other this week, and after pie you will have a game show about your own relatives ready to play on the TV. Free to start, runs in a browser.
