As you gather around for thanksgiving dinner, play some Thanksgiving games, have great conversations, and enjoy the company of family and friends.
These Thanksgiving games for adults add even more fun and laughter to this joyous gathering.
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These Thanksgiving dinner games take your party to the next level. They are all theme-fitting but no need to limit yourself, explore also 29 fun party games for adults that make any get-together exciting.
1. Thanksgiving A to Z
Beautiful designs on this Thanksgiving game are perfect a harvest-time celebration. Thanksgiving A to Z is a simple, popular game anyone can play.
All you need to do is to list a Thanksgiving-themed word for each letter.
Set a timer to two minutes and write as many words as you can. The winner is the one with the most words. You could also play this the way that the winner is the one who finishes first.
2. Thanksgiving Charades
Get your act together because it’s time to play charades! You can divide into teams or play on the same side.
Write the Thanksgiving words on pieces of paper and mix them in a little bowl or cup. Have one player choose a word to act out. The other players must guess what the word or phrase is.
The actor may not speak or point to things in the room. For example, if the word is turkey, they cannot point to the stuffed turkey on the dining table.
You could also allow the players to invent their own Thanksgiving-themed words instead of using the prompts.
Here are some ideas for Thanksgiving charade prompts:
- Happy Thanksgiving
- Turkey
- Corn maze
- Pumpkin pie
- Scarecrow
- Stuffing
- Raking leaves
- Autumn
- Thanksgiving
- Candy corn
- Cornucopia
- Hayride
- Football
- Gratitude
- Cranberry sauce
Or come up with phrases like
- A man raking leaves
- High school football team
- Pumpkin pie cooling on the counter
- Three kids laughing on a hayride
- A woman lost in a corn maze
3. Stuff the Turkey
Create a turkey from 3 paper bags (1 large, 2 small), newspaper or tissues, white paper, and some tape. Here’s a paper bag turkey tutorial from Juicy Juice.
Give each player lots of balled-up paper and take turns tossing them to stuff the turkey.
Turn it into a game of TURKEY by attempting shots from difficult angles.
The first player goes, and if he makes the shot, the next player must attempt a shot from the same place. However, if the first player misses the turkey, the next player can decide where she wants to make her shot.
Gameplay continues in this way. If the player before you makes the shot, you must copy what he did. If he misses, you can attempt a different kind of shot.
Each time a player misses a shot, he receives a letter (T-U-R-K-E-Y). When someone spells out TURKEY, they’re out of the game. Keep going until there’s only 1 player left!
The winner gets to be first in line for dinner!
Alternatively, if you have a basketball hoop available, you could play this game outside and get some fresh air!
4. Thanksgiving Dice Game
This is a wonderful game to encourage the expression of gratitude and thankfulness for your loved ones. By the end of the game, your hearts will feel lighter and happier.
There are two fun variations of this game. The first one is Say Something Nice. The number you roll corresponds to the number on the list that tells you which person you’re supposed to say something nice to.
The second is the Dice Gratitude Game from Play Party Plan. Whatever you roll, you express gratitude for the person on your left. Some examples include:
- Reason why you’re thankful for them
- Compliment them
- A funny story about them
5. Don’t Say It: Thanksgiving Edition
Give each player 3 turkey feathers. They could be made from construction paper, or you could purchase fun faux turkey feathers.
Anytime you catch someone using one of the forbidden words, you can steal one of their feathers. The goal is to collect the most feathers by the end of the party!
But don’t worry, if you run out of feathers, you’re still in the game! As long as the party’s going, you have time to recover your precious turkey feathers, maybe even the other players’ feathers.
Forbidden Word Ideas
- Turkey
- Feather
- I’m thankful for
- I’m grateful for
- Last year
- This year
- Leftovers
- Food
- Pie
- Black Friday
- Dinner
- Shopping
- Pumpkin
What are some words or phrases your family uses a lot around Thanksgiving? Add them to the list, and maybe you’ll catch some of your family saying them!
6. Thanksgiving Pictionary
It’s a fun game for the talented artist and the one who has no idea how to draw a turkey.
Grab some pencils and paper, and let the chaos begin!
Split into 2 teams and designate 1 player from each team as the “drawer” (not the kind in a filing cabinet).
Give the first team 2 minutes to guess as many words as possible. Receive 1 point for each correct guess. The illustrator is NOT allowed to speak or use letters/numbers to help their teammates guess the word.
Once time runs out, it’s the second team’s turn to go. The gameplay continues until everyone has a turn to draw.
Tally up the points, and the team with the highest score wins!
Some Thanksgiving pictionary prompts for you:
- Turkey
- Stuffing
- Thanksgiving
- Gravy
- Leaves
- Cornucopia
- Potatoes
- Pumpkin Pie
- Ham
- Pilgrim
- Indian
- Pumpkin
- Family
- Friends
- Corn
- pumpkin spice latte
- room for seconds
- harvest of blessings
- breaking a wishbone
7. Thankfulness Basket
Thanksgiving is a time for thankfulness and gratitude, and this is a simple yet fun way to encourage guests to remember all the ways they’ve been blessed this year.
- Hand each person a pen and a piece of paper.
- Write down what you’re thankful for and add your name in tiny print at the corner.
- Fold the paper and toss it into the basket.
- Once all the papers have been collected, pass the basket around.
- Take turns reading them out loud and guessing who they belong to. The reader may not guess.
There’s no scorekeeping (though you may turn it into a friendly competition if you wish to), just lots of fun sharing what you’re thankful for.
Have the player who wrote it explain why they’re thankful for whatever they mentioned. If there’s a longer story to tell, go ahead and share it!
8. Pumpkin Artist
Everyone wins the Terrible Artist award in this hilarious drawing game.
Give everyone a piece of paper and something hard to write on, such as a hardcover book or a clipboard.
Everyone places the book with the paper on their heads and draws a pumpkin as fast as they can before time is up. 30 seconds should do the trick. It could be more or less. Maybe even 10 seconds.
Present your awful artwork to the other players and enjoy their friendly mockery as you poke fun at their dreadful drawings.
You could play several rounds by drawing anything Thanksgiving-themed, such as a turkey, pumpkin pie, leaves, etc.
There’s also a version where one person gives instructions on what to draw and when. There’s no timer involved in this version of the game.
For example, a pumpkin patch on a sunny day
- Draw several pumpkins.
- Draw a sun in the sky
- Place a haybale in the pumpkin patch.
- Add a scarecrow to protect your pumpkin patch.
- Put a coffee mug on the haybale.
9. I Thought of It Too
I thought of it too! is a fun game you can play at the Thanksgiving dinner table.
- Divide the guests into teams.
- Give everyone a pen and game sheet.
- Read one question at a time.
- Each player writes down the first three things or just one thing (to make it more difficult) that comes to their mind.
- After each question, count how many people on each team have written down the same word.
Points: If you have 5 or more people on each team give points as follows:
- 3 points for every word that 3 players have in common
- 4 points for every word that 4 players have in common
- 5 points for every word that 5 players have in common
10. Pumpkin Pie Race
Incredibly messy but delicious and fun at the same time!
You will need:
- 5 pumpkin candies
- disposable pie pans
- lots and lots of whipped cream
Toss five pumpkin candies into each pan and hide them with a ton of whipped cream.
Give a pan to each participant. Everyone must use their mouths to dig through the cream and collect the pumpkin candy.
Make sure to let players know how many pieces are in each pan so they don’t keep searching forever when they’ve finished. It would make a funny joke, but it’s also a little cruel…
11. Guess the Number of Candies
This is a fun passive Thanksgiving Day game while waiting for more dinner guests to arrive or for the turkey to heat up.
Fill up a jar with pumpkin candies. Remember to count the candies while you put them in the jar.
Place the candy jar on a table and leave paper slips, a pencil, and an empty jar beside it. The guest write their name and guess on a piece of paper and place it in the empty jar.
The one who guesses the closest wins the entire jar of candy.
12. For Thanksgiving Dinner I Ate…
Test your memories (and your hungry stomachs!) with this fun game! Each player adds to the sentence and must repeat what’s been said before them.
For example, the first player says, “For Thanksgiving dinner, I ate turkey.” The next player says, “For Thanksgiving dinner, I ate turkey and mashed potatoes.” Continue adding to the ever-growing list of dishes.
Everything must be said in the exact same order! No mixups allowed.
If a player makes a mistake, they’re out, and the next one in line picks up where they left off. The game ends when there’s only one player left.
13. Find the Guest
Get everyone to mingle at your Thanksgiving party. Even the quieter guests will have fun to meet new people as they compete to finish this Thanksgiving Find the Guest game.
Find the Guest is one of the awesome Thanksgiving games for workplace that are easy to play and don’t require a lot of prep work.
14. Thanksgiving Would You Rather
An easy game to pass the time. Have each player come up with their own questions, or you can have pre-made questions written before the guests arrive.
Give each player a couple slips of paper and have them write down a would you rather question on each slip. Place all the questions into a bowl and pass it around, taking turns asking the questions.
It’s a good idea to prepare some questions in case people can’t think of their own questions on the spot.
Some fun Thanksgiving-themed Would You Rather questions:
- Only eat turkey for the rest of your life, or only drink apple cider for the rest of your life?
- Live in a house made out of pumpkin pie or drive a car made out of candy corn?
- Say “Thank you” at the end of every sentence or never say “Thank you?”
- Swim in a pool of apple cider or cranberry sauce?
- Go to work in a turkey costume or dressed like a pumpkin pie?
- Walk like a turkey or sound like a turkey?
15. Feathers Out
Get the feathers out of the house…
For this game you need a feather or a few for each player.
The players must blow the feather to keep it in the air and to carry it like that to finish line.
Whoever gets their feather(s) to the finish line first wins.
16. Printable Thanksgiving Games for Adults
I have already mentioned some of these games to you, but here is the whole set of 8 printable Thanksgiving games. Simple games you can play at the dinner table or bring to work.
Holiday Fun for Adults
Check out also Friendsgiving games for additional Thanksgiving fun for adults. And if you are still looking for a fun theme for you fall dinner party, you’ll enjoy reading this post about fall dinner party ideas.
These fun Christmas party ideas for work won’t disappoint. Many simple ideas that bring the Holiday cheer to the office.