Thanksgiving games for the family and the table

Thanksgiving table games

Games you can play without anyone leaving their chair, between courses or over pie. None of them need anyone to perform.

• Gratitude A to Z

  • Ages 5 and up
  • 3 to 20, round the table

  You need: Nothing (or a random letter on a phone).

  Go round the table in order. The first person names something they are thankful for that starts with A, the next B, and so on. Q, X and Z get creative ("Xtra pie"). Stuck players can pass once.

  Draw a random letter instead

• Thankful guess who

  • Ages 8 and up
  • 5 to 20

  You need: Slips of paper, pens, a bowl.

  Everyone writes one thing they are thankful for, without their name, and folds it into the bowl. Over dessert, the host reads them one by one and the table guesses who wrote each. Specific ones are the most fun: "the neighbor who returned our dog twice".

• Place-card questions

  • Ages 6 and up
  • 4 to 40

  You need: The printable place cards on this page.

  Each guest's place card has a question folded inside. Between courses, the host picks a seat and that guest answers. It gets quiet relatives talking without putting anyone on the spot.

  Make the place cards

• Family trivia

  • Ages 8 and up
  • 6 to 30, in teams

  You need: Ten questions the host writes about the family.

  Write questions only the family could answer: who had the first car, which cousin was born in a snowstorm, what Grandma's pie secret is. Teams mix generations. Older relatives tend to win, which is the point.

• Blind turkey drawing

  • Ages 5 and up
  • Any, all at once

  You need: Paper napkins or paper place mats, pens.

  Everyone draws a turkey with their eyes closed while the host calls out the parts one by one: body, head, wattle, five tail feathers, legs, a pilgrim hat. Eyes open, pass them round, and vote for the best and the strangest.

• Thanksgiving bingo

  • All ages
  • 2 to 40

  You need: The printable cards on this page.

  Hand out cards before dinner. Mark a square when you see or hear it during the day (the gravy boat, a big hug, a second helping), or play it the usual way with a caller after the meal.

  Make the cards

• Would you rather at the table

  • Ages 6 and up
  • Any

  You need: A phone.

  Read a question, everyone answers on three: hands up for the first choice, down for the second. Ask one person on each side to explain.

  Would you rather questions

Thanksgiving games for kids

For the hour before dinner when the kitchen is busy and the kids are not. Most of these go outside.

• Turkey feather hunt

  • Ages 3 and up
  • Any

  You need: Paper feathers in five colors (or craft feathers), a paper turkey body.

  Hide the feathers around the house before guests arrive. Kids find them and tape them onto the turkey on the fridge. When the turkey has a full tail, everyone gets a small treat.

• Gobble tag

  • Ages 4 and up
  • 5 or more

  You need: A yard or park.

  One child is the farmer. Everyone else is a turkey and must gobble whenever they run. A tagged turkey freezes with arms out like a fanned tail, until another turkey crawls under the arms to free them.

• Mini pumpkin spoon relay

  • Ages 5 and up
  • Two teams of 3 or more

  You need: Two serving spoons, two mini pumpkins or small gourds.

  Carry the pumpkin on the spoon to a chair and back, then hand it to the next teammate. Drop it and you go back to the start. For older kids, carry the spoon in your mouth.

• Feather blow race

  • Ages 4 and up
  • 2 to 6 at a time

  You need: A craft feather and a straw per player, a long table.

  Players line up at one end of the table and blow their feather to the other end through a straw. No hands. If it falls off the table, start again.

• Candy corn straw pickup

  • Ages 7 and up
  • 2 to 6 at a time

  You need: Straws, two small bowls per player, candy corn.

  Suck through the straw to lift candy corn from one bowl to the other, one piece at a time, for one minute. Most moved wins.

  Tip: Under 8, use cereal rings instead of candy corn, and keep it away from little ones who might inhale a piece.

• Leaf pile race

  • Ages 5 and up
  • Teams of 2 or 3

  You need: Rakes or hands, a yard with leaves.

  Each team gets a patch of yard and five minutes to rake the biggest pile. Then the reward: everyone jumps in. It also gets the yard raked.

After-dinner Thanksgiving games

The long, slow part of the day. Games people can join and leave, with or without a second slice.

• The card table

  • Ages 8 and up
  • 2 to 12

  You need: A deck or two of cards, a score pad.

  Set up one table for cards after dinner and let people drift in and out. A partnership game like Spades or Euchre suits a table of four; Five Crowns works for mixed ages. Our pages have the rules and a free score keeper for each.

  Card games for the table

• Dice games

  • Ages 6 and up
  • 2 to 12

  You need: Six dice (or three per table for Bunco).

  Farkle and Pig need nothing but dice and can take any number of players. With 8 to 12 people, a quick round of Bunco turns the living room into three tables.

  Dice game rules

• Backyard touch football

  • Ages 8 and up
  • 6 to 20

  You need: A ball, four cones or shoes for end zones.

  Two-hand touch, everyone is eligible, and the quarterback counts "five turkeys" before rushing. Mix ages on each team and let the youngest player kick off.

• Pie taste-off

  • All ages
  • 4 to 30

  You need: Two or three versions of one pie (homemade and store-bought), numbered plates, ballots.

  Serve small slices on numbered plates without saying which is which. Everyone votes for a favorite and guesses which one is homemade. The baker usually wants a rematch.

• Charades

  • Ages 5 and up
  • 6 or more, in two teams

  You need: A phone.

  The after-dinner classic. Act out the prompt with no words while your team guesses. Food-themed acts (carving a turkey, a pie that will not slice) fit the day.

  Charades ideas generator

• The gratitude game

  • Ages 5 and up
  • 3 to 20

  You need: The prompt deck on this page and a phone.

  Pass the phone round. Each person draws a prompt ("a small thing in your house that makes every day easier") and answers in a sentence or two. Kids mode keeps the prompts simple.

  Open the gratitude deck

Card and dice games for after dinner

Every one of these has plain-English rules and a free score keeper on our site, so nobody has to argue from memory about how Grandpa played it.

• Spades: 4 players in partnerships; good for a cousins' table.
• Euchre: 4 players, fast hands, easy to drop in and out.
• Gin rummy: 2 players, for the quiet corner.
• Five Crowns: 2 to 7 players, all ages from about 8.
• Phase 10: 2 to 6 players, a long game for a long afternoon.
• Farkle: Any number with six dice; easy to teach between pies.
• Bunco: 8 to 12 players at three tables.

Hosting a regular group in November? Our Bunco party ideas include a thankful potluck theme.

The gratitude game

A broad "What are you thankful for?" is hard to answer on the spot; a specific prompt is easier. Pass the phone: each person taps for a prompt and finishes the sentence "I am thankful for..." with it, in a sentence or two. Kids mode keeps to simple prompts; turn on Deeper for teens and grown-ups.

Ways to play: answer in seat order; or let each person pick who answers next; or play "same prompt": everyone answers the same one before the next draw.

Printable Thanksgiving bingo cards

Play it two ways: hand out cards in the morning and mark squares as they happen during the day, or call the words after dinner like regular bingo. Up to 60 different cards, two per page.

This is what prints: the bingo cards, sized for US Letter. Use your browser's Print (Ctrl+P, Cmd+P on a Mac, or Share then Print on a phone).Another sheet on this page is set to print. Print the bingo cards instead

A Thanksgiving games plan for the day

1. Morning: hand out "spot it" bingo cards and hide the turkey feathers.
2. Before dinner: gobble tag or the leaf pile race outside while the kitchen finishes.
3. At the table: place-card questions between courses, gratitude A to Z before dessert.
4. After dinner: the pie taste-off, then the card table and charades for whoever is still awake.

Already planning ahead? Our Christmas games has bingo, a left-right gift game and trivia, and our Halloween party games cover October. Any other night, the game night planner picks games by group size and time.

Thanksgiving game questions

What are good Thanksgiving games for the whole family?

At the table: gratitude A to Z, place-card questions and Thanksgiving bingo. For kids: a turkey feather hunt and gobble tag. After dinner: a card table, a pie taste-off and charades. Every one works with mixed ages.

What is a good gratitude game for Thanksgiving?

Pass a phone round with our gratitude prompt deck, play gratitude A to Z, or write thankful notes for a guess-who round over dessert. Prompts like "a small thing that makes every day easier" get better answers than "what are you thankful for?".

What games can you play at the Thanksgiving table?

Games that need no space and no running: place-card questions, gratitude A to Z, thankful guess who, family trivia, blind turkey drawing and bingo. Use the "Sitting at the table" filter in the picker.