Thanksgiving Games Nobody at Your Table Has Played Yet
Fresh games for before dinner, at the table, and after the pie, with setup notes and prep time for every one.
Posted by Ally PattersonDate:09/30/2026
Posted by Ally PattersonPosted by Ally PattersonThe best Thanksgiving games fit the moment: something active while the turkey cooks, something quiet at the table, and something easy for the couch after dinner. The ideas below use your own family's food, stories, and inside jokes, so they feel new even for groups that play the same games every year. Each one lists what you need and how long it takes to prep.
Already have game ideas, but need help organizing?
Our Thanksgiving Planning Guide lays it all out for you to help reduce your stress and includes the free SignUpGenius tools you can use to make it even easier.
Thanksgiving Planning GuideUse this table to pick a game fast. Prep time counts everything you do before the day, including collecting answers from guests.
Details for each game can be found below the table.
| Game | Best For | Prep Time |
|---|---|---|
| Cranberry Curling | Kids and mixed ages, before dinner | 5 minutes |
| Parade Float Challenge | Kids and teens, parade morning | 5 minutes |
| Kitchen Packaging Minute to Win It | Kids, before dinner | None (save packaging while you cook) |
| Who Made This Dish? | Potluck Thanksgivings | 10 minutes |
| Year in Headlines | Mixed ages, at the table | 5 minutes |
| Homemade or Store-Bought? | Mixed ages, at the table | Buy one extra side dish |
| Family Lore Charades | Families with years of shared stories | 1 week (collect prompts) |
| Survey Says: Family Edition | Mixed ages, after dinner | 1 week (collect answers) |
| Leftover Sandwich Showdown | Teens and adults, evening | None |
| Hot Take Tribunal | Adults | 5 minutes |
| Pie Pitch | Adults, dessert time | None |
| Commercial Break Challenges | Homes with football on | 15 minutes |
| The Thanksgiving Cup | Big groups, all day | 15 minutes |
| Guest Fun Fact Match | Friendsgiving and new groups | 1 week (collect facts) |
The hour before dinner is when kids get loud and the kitchen gets crowded. These games move that energy to another room and use things you already have.
Find a long stretch of hard floor, like a hallway or kitchen. Use painter's tape to make a target on the floor with three rings worth 1, 3, and 5 points. Players take turns sliding unopened cans of cranberry sauce toward the target, like curling. A can can knock another can out of the rings. First team to 21 wins.
You need: 4 to 8 unopened cans, painter's tape, a smooth floor.
Make it work: Let little kids throw from a few steps closer. It evens the game without anyone making a big deal of it.
Time this one with the parade on TV. Split into teams. Give each team a shoebox or cereal box, tape, markers, and 20 minutes with the recycling bin. Each team builds a mini parade float with a name and a theme. At the next commercial break, teams roll their floats past a panel of grandparent judges and give a 30-second announcer intro.
You need: boxes, tape, markers, clean recycling.
Make it work: Hand out award categories so every team wins something, like best balloon, best name, or most likely to fall apart.
Keep a bag by the counter while you cook. Toss in stuffing boxes, broth cartons, foil tubes, and rinsed cans with smooth rims. By noon, you have a full game kit. Each round lasts one minute. Stack stuffing boxes into the tallest tower. Balance three empty cans on a foil tube. Toss mini marshmallows into a pie tin from across the room.
You need: your cooking packaging, mini marshmallows, a phone timer.
Make it work: Write each challenge on a card and let kids draw one at random. The surprise is half the fun.
Good table games stay quiet, need nothing near the plates, and let anyone join in or sit out.
This works best at a potluck Thanksgiving. As dishes arrive, the host sets a numbered card next to each one. Every guest gets a slip of paper and guesses who made each dish. The host reveals the answers at dessert. Guests get one point for each right guess and a bonus point for the dish nobody guessed.
You need: numbered cards, slips of paper, pens.
Before everyone sits down, each person writes one newspaper headline about their year on an index card. "Local Man Finally Finishes Basement." "Area Teen Gets License, Parents Nervous." Cards go into a bowl. Between courses, someone reads them one at a time and the table guesses who wrote each one. It's an easy way to catch up without going around the table giving speeches.
You need: index cards, pens, a bowl.
Make it work: Kids who can't write yet can draw their headline as a picture.
Pick one side dish, like cranberry sauce, rolls, or gravy. Serve a homemade version and a store-bought version in matching bowls marked A and B. Everyone tastes both and votes on which is homemade. The cook reveals the answer after the vote.
You need: two versions of one dish, two matching bowls.
Make it work: Wait until after pie to tell the cook how many people picked the store-bought one.
After the meal, people want to sit. These games work from the couch and keep going if someone dozes off halfway through.
This charades game uses your family's own history for the prompts. A week before Thanksgiving, ask everyone to send three moments from past holidays. The year the oven died. The time the dog stole a turkey leg. The cousin who brought sushi. Write each moment on a slip of paper. On the day, players act them out while everyone else guesses.
You need: slips of paper, a bowl, a timer.
Make it work: Mix in a few general prompts like "carving the turkey" or "watching the parade" so newer guests can play too.
This is a Thanksgiving Family Feud game with answers from your actual guests. A week before, send five questions to everyone who's coming. Name something Grandpa says every Thanksgiving. Name a dish that always has leftovers. Name something that goes wrong every year. Tally the answers into a top-five list for each question. On the day, two teams face off to guess the most popular answers.
You need: your five questions, a whiteboard or poster board, two teams.
Late in the evening, split into teams. Each team gets 10 minutes with the leftovers to build the best next-day sandwich. A panel of judges scores each one on taste, looks, and name. The winning sandwich becomes the official lunch on Friday.
You need: leftovers, bread, a timer, two or three judges.
Make it work: Give each team one "secret ingredient" from the pantry that they have to use.
Adults want games with a little edge that stay far away from politics. These keep the debates about food.
Everyone writes one strong food opinion on a card with no name on it. "Canned cranberry sauce is better." "Pumpkin pie is overrated." One person acts as judge and reads each card out loud. The group guesses who wrote it. Then the author gets 30 seconds to defend their opinion, and the group votes guilty or not guilty.
You need: index cards, pens, one judge.
Make it work: Set one rule at the start: every hot take has to be about food.
Everyone who brought a dessert gets 30 seconds to pitch it to the room, like a startup pitching investors. Each guest gets five toothpicks to "invest" and sticks them in the desserts they want to back. The dessert with the most toothpicks gets cut first.
You need: toothpicks, desserts, a timer.
Make it work: Let people split their toothpicks. It leads to deal-making.
This one is for homes where football stays on all day. Write quick challenges on cards. Name five pie flavors in 10 seconds. Hum a song until your team guesses it. Balance a spoon on your nose. During each commercial break, one player from each team draws a card. Teams keep score through the whole game, so people who don't care about football have something to root for.
You need: a stack of challenge cards, a scorecard.
Make it work: Save the hardest challenges for the fourth quarter, when the score gets close.
With 15 or more people, games need teams and one person running them. These two tie the whole day together.
Split everyone into teams when they arrive. Every game through the day earns points, from curling to charades to the pie pitch. Keep a scoreboard on the fridge so people can check it on the way to refills. At the end of the night, award a trophy, like a gourd spray-painted gold. The winning team brings it back next year, and the game turns into a tradition.
You need: a scoreboard, a trophy, games from this page.
Make it work: Mix ages on every team so no team is all teenagers.
Before the party, collect one surprising fact from each guest. "I've been to 40 states." "I once got stuck in an elevator with a mayor." Print the facts on a sheet with a blank line next to each one. Guests mingle and try to match every fact to the right person. It works well at a Friendsgiving where not everyone knows each other.
You need: one fact from each guest, a printed sheet, pens.
Make it work: Give a small prize to the first person who fills in every blank.
Hosting Friendsgiving this year?
Hosting can be stressful when you're trying to coordinate a large group of friends. Check out our guide on how to make it easy including sign up templates you can use to get organized fast.
How to Host a Friendsgiving Potluck People Will RememberPlan one game for each part of the day: one before dinner, one at the table, and one after. Three games is plenty. If you plan more, you'll skip some, and that's fine.
Hand each game to a "game captain" so the host isn't running everything while also carving a turkey. The games that need answers from guests, like Family Lore Charades and Survey Says, need a head start. Send those questions a week out.
A week before
The day before
Thanksgiving Day
I'm hosting kids, teens, and grandparents. What Thanksgiving games work for everyone?
Pick games with no reading speed or running required. Year in Headlines, Homemade or Store-Bought?, and Survey Says: Family Edition all let grandparents and young kids play on the same level. Cranberry Curling also works for every age if younger kids throw from closer to the target.
How do I keep kids busy while the adults are cooking?
Give them a building project with a deadline. The Parade Float Challenge keeps kids busy for 20 minutes and ends with a show for the adults. Kitchen Packaging Minute to Win It uses boxes and cans from the cooking, so it needs no shopping and fills the gap right before dinner.
What are good Thanksgiving games for adults that won't start an argument?
Keep the competition about food. Hot Take Tribunal lets adults debate cranberry sauce and pie instead of anything serious. Pie Pitch and Commercial Break Challenges add friendly stakes without picking sides. Setting a "food only" rule at the start keeps the mood light all evening.
How many games should I plan for Thanksgiving Day?
Three is enough for most families: one before dinner, one at the table, and one after. That covers the times people get restless without crowding the day. Assign a game captain to each one so the host can focus on the meal, and keep one no-prep game as a backup.
I'm organizing a Thanksgiving game night for my church or school. How do I handle tickets and volunteers?
Use a sign up to assign volunteers to games, food, and cleanup, with automatic reminders before the event. If you're charging admission, Events lets you sell tickets and collect attendee details in one step, and QR code tickets make check-in at the door faster.
I love SignUpGenius' ease of use and functionality. In just the last few weeks, I have used SignUpGenius to help manage Girl Scout outings, Secret Santa sign up, a potluck and a volunteer opportunity at our preschool. The possibilities are endless. I've tried other sign up websites and find SignUpGenius by far the best fit for my purpose.
Diane Crockett
