23 Thanksgiving Games for Family: Table, Kids & Backyard

The best Thanksgiving games match where your family already is when you need one. With twelve people seated and the turkey still resting, read one would-you-rather card aloud: nobody stands up, the youngest guest can answer, and the round ends when the platter arrives. Children bouncing off the walls at 3 p.m. need a yard and red light, green light. After pie, when everyone is full and slow, draw-and-pass telephone or charades keeps the table together.

Below are 23 Thanksgiving games in four groups, by where you’ll play them. Each one lists how many players it needs, a rough time, what to set out, how a round works and how it ends. Most have a snag worth knowing before you start, and it’s written into that game.

Pick a Thanksgiving game by where you’ll play

Start with the room and the crowd, then pick from the matching group. Times are our rough estimates for one round with a family-size group.

Where	Game	Players	Rough time	You need
At the table	Would you rather	Everyone seated	1–2 min per card	Question cards
At the table	Pass the question	Everyone seated	One per course	Conversation cards
At the table	Guess the Thanksgiving dish	3+	5 min	One clue page
At the table	Thankful alphabet	4+	10 min	Nothing
At the table	Twenty questions	3+	5 min a round	Nothing
At the table	Thanksgiving trivia	2 teams	10 min	One question list
Kids, before dinner	Word search race	Readers	3 min	Same puzzle for each
Kids, before dinner	Harvest bingo	Up to 30	15 min	Bingo cards, markers
Kids, before dinner	Hide the turkey	3+	5 min a round	One small object
Kids, before dinner	Pin the feather on the turkey	4+	10 min	Poster, paper feathers, scarf
Kids, before dinner	Turkey coloring contest	Any	20–30 min	Coloring pages, crayons
Kids, before dinner	Telephone	6+	5 min	Nothing
Yard or open room	Backyard touch football	6+	30–45 min	A football
Yard or open room	Pumpkin bowling	2+	15 min	Small pumpkin, 10 pins
Yard or open room	Cranberry spoon race	4+	10 min	Spoons, cranberries
Yard or open room	Hot potato	5+	10 min	Beanbag, music
Yard or open room	Turkey says	3+	10 min	Nothing
Yard or open room	Red light, green light	4+	10 min	A long space
Yard or open room	Bean bag toss	2 or 4	20–30 min	Two boards, eight bags
After dinner	Thanksgiving charades	2 teams	20 min	Paper slips, timer
After dinner	Draw-and-pass telephone	4+	15 min	Paper, pencils
After dinner	Left right pass game	6+	5–10 min	A story, one prize
After dinner	Wishbone pull	2	1 min	The turkey’s wishbone

Thanksgiving table games to play between courses

Table games work because nobody has to move, and the crowd can include a grandparent and a toddler. Each of these can stop the moment the next dish is ready.

Would you rather

Players: everyone at the table · Time: a minute or two per card · You need: a deck of Thanksgiving question cards

Shuffle the cards face down. One player draws and reads the question aloud, then everyone picks A or B and explains why. Our Thanksgiving Would You Rather Cards open with “Would you rather eat only turkey for Thanksgiving or only mashed potatoes?” The deck has 100 questions and a separate pile of 20 challenge cards. The how-to page offers three modes: everyone answers, a majority vote, or guessing what another player will choose.

The round ends whenever you stop drawing, so there’s no score to settle before the food comes. If you want a winner, the scorecard has lines for Funniest Answer and Most Surprising Answer. One snag: the No Thinking challenge makes the next player answer in three seconds. Leave it out of a round where people are telling family stories.

Pass the question

Players: everyone at the table · Time: one card per course · You need: a stack of conversation cards

Put one question card at each plate, or pass a small stack around between courses. Whoever holds a card reads it out and answers it first, then the table joins in. The twelve table cards in the bonus pack of our Cozy Fall Party Games include “Which dish on this table would you defend with your life?” and “Who taught you to cook something? What was it?” The card page says everybody answers, including the person carving.

The round is over when every card has been read. Look through the stack before you set it out. “Who would you like to see before the year is out?” can land hard at a table missing someone this year. Pull that card, or tell people up front that passing is fine.

Guess the Thanksgiving dish

Players: 3 or more · Time: about 5 minutes · You need: one printed clue page and the answer key

One person reads each clue aloud, and the first player to name the dish gets the point. The Guess the Thanksgiving Dish page in the same fall pack has eight clues, from “Golden skin, hours in the oven” to “Brown and glossy, poured over everything.” The answer key runs roast turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, dinner rolls and gravy. The page’s own prize: name all eight and you get to carve.

Clue four describes cranberry sauce that slides out still shaped like its can. Kids from homemade-cranberry families may never have seen that, so give them a second hint. Stuffing can trip people up too, because some families call it dressing. Accept either name.

Thankful alphabet

Players: 4 or more · Time: about 10 minutes · You need: nothing

This is the old memory game “I packed my bag,” with one change: say “This Thanksgiving I’m thankful for…” and work through the alphabet. The first player names something starting with A. The next repeats the A item, then adds a B item, and so on around the table. In the traditional version, a player who forgets an earlier item or can’t add a new one is out, and the last player left wins.

For a mixed-age table, drop the elimination and play together to Z. Agree before you start what happens at Q, X and Z, which stall most families. Letting a player skip one of those letters keeps the chain moving.

Twenty questions

Players: 3 or more · Time: about 5 minutes a round · You need: nothing

One player, the answerer, thinks of something on the table or in the holiday: the gravy boat, the parade, the pumpkin pie. Everyone else takes turns asking yes-or-no questions, and lying is not allowed. Whoever guesses correctly becomes the next answerer. If 20 questions pass without a right guess, the answerer has stumped the table and goes again.

The classic opener is “animal, vegetable or mineral,” where the answerer names the category first. It can start an argument about whether a wooden serving board counts as vegetable because wood comes from trees. Settle that kind of odd case before the first question.

Thanksgiving trivia

Players: two teams, one reader · Time: about 10 minutes · You need: a list of questions with answers

Split the table into two sides. The reader asks a question, each side agrees on one answer, and a correct answer earns a point. Our Thanksgiving trivia questions cover the 1621 harvest feast, presidents, the date and food, with easier questions for kids.

That list prints each answer right after its question, so give the reader the only copy, or someone will read ahead. For a quick round between courses, stop after five questions and play the rest with dessert.

Thanksgiving games for kids while dinner cooks

The hour before dinner is when kids get restless and the kitchen is busiest. These games keep children in one room, and most need one adult for the first minute only.

Word search race

Players: kids who can read · Time: 3 minutes a round · You need: the same word search for every player, pencils and a timer

Print the same page for every player, start a 3-minute timer together, and stop at the bell. Check each sheet against the answer key: one point per correct word. The most words wins, and a tie is a shared win. Those are the rules of the Thankful Word Sprint in our Thanksgiving Word Search Puzzles, which has 40 puzzles: 12 Easy, 16 Medium and 12 Hard.

For older kids, the pack’s harder round has no word list at all: 60 seconds to find Thanksgiving words in a grid. Only its 12 target words score, so say that before the timer starts. Never race an Easy page against a Hard one. Easy words run only right, down and a couple of down-right diagonals, while Medium and Hard words run in all eight directions, including backward.

Harvest bingo

Players: up to 30 · Time: about 15 minutes · You need: bingo cards, the caller slips and something to mark squares with

Cut the caller slips apart, fold them and drop them in a hat. The caller draws one at a time and reads it out, and players mark the matching square. Our Fall Classroom Games include 30 different harvest bingo cards, two to a sheet, each a five-by-five grid of small fall pictures with a FREE center square. The first player to complete a row, column or diagonal calls “Bingo!”

Watch the near twins. The cards include both Owl and Barn owl, two different squirrels, Acorn and Two acorns, and Mushroom and Toadstool, drawn with similar icons. A child who can’t read yet will mark the wrong one. Have the caller hold up each slip and point to the word.

Hide the turkey

Players: 3 or more · Time: about 5 minutes a round · You need: one small object, such as a toy turkey or a paper turkey

This is the old parlor game hunt the thimble. One player hides the turkey while everyone else covers their eyes or waits in the hall. When the hider calls them back, or after the seekers count to sixty, everyone hunts. The first to find it wins and hides it next.

For little kids, add the “hot and cold” version: the hider says “warmer” or “colder” as seekers get closer or farther away. Mark the kitchen off-limits for hiding. A turkey tucked beside a hot oven sends a child exactly where you don’t want them.

Pin the feather on the turkey

Players: 4 or more · Time: about 10 minutes · You need: a turkey drawn without tail feathers, paper feathers, tape and a scarf for a blindfold

This is pin the tail on the donkey with a turkey. Tape a large turkey body to the wall at the kids’ height and write each child’s name on a paper feather. One at a time, blindfold a child, turn them around gently a few times and let them stick their feather where they think the tail goes. The feather closest to the right spot wins.

The traditional game uses a push pin through the tail. Swap that for a loop of tape, because a dizzy, blindfolded child is holding it near other kids’ faces. Winning matters less than the watching: half the fun is seeing feathers land on the turkey’s head.

Turkey coloring contest

Players: any number · Time: 20–30 minutes · You need: a turkey coloring page for each child, crayons or colored pencils

Hand out the pages, set a time limit that ends when dinner is called, and judge at the table. Our Turkey Coloring Pages have 24 drawings in three levels: Easy 01–08, Normal 09–16 and Hard 17–24. Each drawing comes with a colored version, so a child has a guide if they want one.

Don’t run one “best picture” prize across all ages, because the oldest child wins every time. Give awards by category instead: wildest tail, best use of orange, most careful coloring. Let each child choose a level, too. For quieter projects that don’t end in a vote, see our Thanksgiving activities for kids.

Telephone

Players: 6 or more · Time: about 5 minutes · You need: nothing

Players sit in a line or a circle. The first player whispers a message to the second, who whispers it to the third, and so on. The last player says out loud what they heard, and the first player reads out the original. A Thanksgiving starter works well: “Grandma’s sweet potatoes wear tiny marshmallow hats.”

The game only works if everyone whispers. When a child shouts the message, the players further down the line hear it straight and nothing gets garbled. Play a practice round with a short sentence before you try a long one.

Outdoor Thanksgiving games and backyard races

Active games fit the stretch when kids can’t sit still any longer and the cook wants the kitchen clear. Each game here needs a yard, a driveway or a living room with the furniture pushed back.

Backyard touch football

Players: 6 or more, split into two teams · Time: 30–45 minutes · You need: a football and four markers for the end zones

Football is part of many American Thanksgivings. Alongside the pro and college games on TV, informal “Turkey Bowl” games are often played on Thanksgiving weekend. Touch football swaps tackling for a touch, and a touchdown usually scores one point. With an odd number of players, one person can be the all-time quarterback who plays offense for both sides.

Mixed ages need two adjustments. Use one-hand touch, since two-hand touch is harder for younger players. Add a “blitz count,” a few seconds the defense must wait after the snap before rushing the quarterback. Play to an agreed score, or stop when someone calls that the pie is out.

Pumpkin bowling

Players: 2 or more · Time: about 15 minutes · You need: a small round pumpkin and ten “pins,” such as empty plastic bottles or paper towel tubes

Set the ten pins in a triangle, the way a tenpin lane does, on grass or a smooth driveway. Each player gets two rolls per turn to knock the pins down. Count the pins that fall, reset, and pass the pumpkin. A real game of bowling runs ten frames, but three to five is plenty for kids.

Pick the roundest pumpkin you can find, because a lopsided one curves away from the pins. Carry it with both hands rather than by the stem, which can snap.

Cranberry spoon race

Players: 4 or more · Time: about 10 minutes · You need: a spoon per player or team, fresh cranberries and a start and finish line

This is an egg-and-spoon race with cranberries. Players balance a cranberry on a spoon and race to the finish line, either one at a time or in teams as a relay. Fresh cranberries bounce, so pick the drop rule before the start. Players can stop, pick the cranberry up and carry on, or go back to the start.

The stop-and-pick-up rule makes a faster race, because dropping costs less and runners take more risks. The back-to-the-start rule gives a slower, more careful race that suits a mixed-age group. For small hands, put a few cranberries in a bigger spoon.

Hot potato

Players: 5 or more · Time: about 10 minutes · You need: a beanbag or soft ball and music

Players stand in a circle and toss the beanbag to each other while the music plays. Whoever is holding it when the music stops is out. Keep going until one player is left. The person running the music should stand with their back to the circle so the stops can’t be timed.

It’s tempting to use a mini pumpkin or a gourd for a Thanksgiving look. A hard gourd thrown across a circle hurts when it hits a face. Keep the throwing game for something soft, or pass a gourd hand to hand instead.

Turkey says

Players: 3 or more · Time: about 10 minutes · You need: nothing

This is Simon Says with a Thanksgiving name. The leader gives commands: “Turkey says flap your wings,” “Turkey says gobble,” “Stir the gravy.” Players follow a command only when it starts with “Turkey says.” Anyone who follows a command without it, or misses one that has it, is out. The last player standing wins and leads the next round.

The game rewards listening rather than speed, which is why it works when toddlers play alongside teenagers. Run one practice round with the new name. Kids who have played Simon Says for years will slip back into the old phrase.

Red light, green light

Players: 4 or more · Time: about 10 minutes · You need: a long open space

The caller stands at one end and everyone else lines up at the other. With their back turned, the caller shouts “Green light!” and players move forward. On “Red light!” the caller spins around, and anyone seen moving goes back to the start. The first player to tag the caller becomes the next caller, and everyone else returns to the line.

Some families add “yellow light,” which means moving in slow motion. The fights in this game are always about whether someone moved, so agree before the first round that the caller’s call is final.

Bean bag toss

Players: 2, or 4 as two teams · Time: 20–30 minutes · You need: two slanted boards with a hole near the top and eight bean bags, four per side

This is the lawn game also known as cornhole or bags. Each side throws four bags per inning from beside one board toward the other. A bag on the board scores one point, and a bag through the hole scores three. Players can’t step past the front of the board while throwing.

Only the difference counts in each inning, which confuses first-timers. If one side scores 12 and the other 10, the first side gets two points and the other gets none. The first to 21 wins. Standard boards stand 27 or 33 feet (8.2 or 10 m) apart, so move them closer for kids.

After-dinner Thanksgiving games for the whole family

After dinner, people are full and want to stay seated. These games need little energy but bring the whole room back together, which is the point of a holiday evening.

Thanksgiving charades

Players: two teams · Time: about 20 minutes · You need: paper slips, a bowl and a timer

Each team writes Thanksgiving prompts on slips for the other team: carving the turkey, watching the parade, chasing a Black Friday sale, napping on the couch. A player draws a slip and acts it out for their own team without speaking, while the timer runs. A correct guess within the time scores a point. Teams alternate until everyone has acted at least once.

Charades rules vary a lot between families. Some allow finger signals for the number of words and an ear tug for “sounds like.” Others allow nothing but acting. Settle that before the first slip, or the game turns into an argument. For more autumn prompts and a no-lift drawing round, see our fall party games.

Draw-and-pass telephone

Players: 4 or more · Time: about 15 minutes · You need: one sheet of paper and a pencil per player

Everyone writes a Thanksgiving phrase at the top of their sheet and passes it on. The next player draws that phrase, folds the paper so only the drawing shows, and passes again. The next player writes what they think the drawing shows and folds the paper again. Keep alternating writing and drawing until each sheet comes home, then unfold and read them aloud.

The fold makes the game. Each player should see only the entry just before theirs. If someone forgets to fold, the next player can see the original phrase, and that sheet won’t drift into anything funny.

Left right pass game

Players: 6 or more · Time: 5–10 minutes · You need: a story full of “left” and “right,” a reader and one wrapped prize

Everyone sits in a circle and one person holds the prize. The reader reads the story aloud. Every time the word LEFT comes up, the prize moves one seat left, and every RIGHT moves it one seat right. Whoever holds it on the last line keeps it. A leftover slice of pie, wrapped, makes a fine prize.

Write a Thanksgiving story yourself using every meaning of both words: “there was one slice left,” “right on time,” “she left the gravy on the stove.” Our left right story game guide shows how to build one. Pull the chairs close enough that everyone can reach both neighbors without standing.

Wishbone pull

Players: 2 · Time: about a minute · You need: the wishbone from the turkey

Two people each hook a finger around one end of the dried wishbone, make a silent wish and pull. The custom of pulling a wishbone dates from the early 17th century, when the bone was called the merrythought. The name “wishbone” was recorded in 1860.

Usually the person left holding the bigger piece gets the wish, but in some families the smaller piece wins. Agree on which before anyone pulls, or Thanksgiving ends with a dispute. Many families set the bone aside to dry for a few days first, since a fresh one tends to bend rather than snap.

All of these games come from Doodlora Studio printables or from rules families have passed around for generations. If you only have five minutes and a full table, start with a would-you-rather card and see where the conversation goes.