Thanksgiving games for adults: games for after dinner

Thanksgiving games for adults work best when they start where everyone already is: full, happy and still at the table. Every game here uses things from your kitchen or nothing at all, with what to gather, how to play and how long a round takes.

An example: the table held only the cream cloth, three small gourds and a bowl of folded slips. Ravi drew a slip, read it and stood up behind his chair. The house rule said every actor could use one thing from the table, so he lifted the empty white platter and held it out in front of him with both hands. Then he froze with his eyes wide, as if it were full to the brim. Claire pointed at him across the table. "Carrying the turkey! No, the gravy!" Her father, Walt, laughed with both hands flat on the table, and Nina put both hands up near her face. It was the gravy, carried across a crowded room.

Games to play at the table after Thanksgiving dinner

Nobody wants to stand up right after the meal. These are played from your chair, and most work over pie too.

• Fork or spoon. You need the fork and spoon still at each place. One player reads out two choices, like pie or stuffing, a nap or a walk, hosting or being a guest, and everyone lifts a fork for the first or a spoon for the second at once. The smaller side gets ten seconds to defend itself. Ten pairs take about ten minutes, and it's the easiest Thanksgiving this or that game there is.
• The laugh chain. You need nothing. The first player says "Ha," the next says "Ha ha," the next "Ha ha ha," and so on around the table, all with a straight face. Anyone who laughs or loses count is out, and a round rarely lasts five minutes.
• Thirty seconds on gravy. You need a bowl of slips with dinner words on them, like gravy, the good chair or leftovers. Draw one and talk about it for thirty seconds without stopping, saying "um" or repeating a word. Anyone who catches a slip taps the table and takes over, and eight players need about fifteen minutes.
• Three things on the table. You need only what's left on the table. A guest who's new to the group picks three objects, like a napkin, a gourd and the salt, and says how each one stands for part of their year. The others ask one question about each, which makes this a gentle Thanksgiving icebreaker for a partner's sister or a new neighbor. Allow five minutes a person.

Between games, someone can tell a turkey joke or two from Thanksgiving jokes while the next player gets ready.

Thanksgiving party games for a bigger gathering

Once dessert is done, a group of ten or more adults needs something that gets people out of their chairs.

• Fishbowl. Gather paper slips, pens and a big bowl. Everyone writes three words from the day, like a dish, a guest's name or something that happened, and two teams play the same slips across three rounds: describe the word, then say only one word, then act it out. All three rounds take about forty-five minutes.
• Human knot. You need nothing. Six to ten people stand in a circle, reach across and take two different hands, then untangle into a circle again without letting go. It takes five to ten minutes and wakes everyone up after the meal.

Thanksgiving charades and pictionary with your own prompts

The best prompts come from the people at the table. Before dessert, hand each guest two slips and ask for one thing from today and one from a Thanksgiving this group remembers. If someone gets stuck, read out a few of these:

• Carrying a full gravy boat across a crowded room
• Wrestling a folding table open
• Squeezing one more chair in at the table
• A dish that won't fit in the fridge
• Carving with a dull knife
• The first guest to fall asleep on the sofa
• A parade balloon in a strong wind
• Undoing the top button after a second helping

Thanksgiving charades. Split into two teams. Each actor gets one minute and no words, plus one thing from the table as a prop, so any plate can become a gravy boat. With two teams, a full round runs about twenty minutes.

Thanksgiving pictionary relay. You need two markers and a long sheet of paper taped to a wall, like the back of a paper tablecloth. Each team gets ten slips written by the other team, and one player draws until their team guesses, then hands the marker on. The first team through all ten slips wins, and a race takes about fifteen minutes.

Charades works in every season, and charades ideas for adults has more categories once these prompts run out.

If the relay leaves the table wanting another round, pictionary words for adults has easy, hard and funny things to draw.

Thanksgiving minute to win it games from the kitchen

Each challenge lasts one minute on the kitchen timer. One player goes while the others count down out loud, so eight players get through a round in about ten minutes.

• Bean transfer. You need a bowl of dried beans, an empty bowl and a pair of chopsticks. Move as many beans as you can into the empty bowl, then count them out loud.
• Penne pick-up. You need one stick of dry spaghetti and a handful of dry penne. Hold the spaghetti in your mouth and thread as many penne onto it as you can without using your hands.
• Nest the bowls. You need every mixing bowl and measuring cup in the kitchen, mixed up on the counter, and a dish towel. Tie the towel over your eyes and nest them all into one stack.
• Potato push. You need one potato and a wooden spoon. Push the potato with the spoon down the hall, around a chair and back, and the fastest time wins.

When December comes, Christmas party games for adults has a winter set of minute challenges made from things at home.

Thanksgiving activities for adults that aren't games

Half the table may not want a game at all, and none of these keeps score.

• The far-seat walk. Head out for twenty minutes before pie, in pairs, and walk with the person who sat furthest from you at dinner.
• Oldest story first. The oldest adult at the table tells about the first Thanksgiving they remember. Then the next oldest goes, and so on down the table, until someone has a different version of the same year. It takes about half an hour.
• The dish crew draw. Draw two pairs from a bowl of names to wash and dry. Everyone else brings a chair into the kitchen and keeps them company, so the clean-up turns into one more long talk.

If your table is friends rather than family, Friendsgiving explains how to share the whole meal so nobody cooks it alone. In September and October, fall party ideas has themes for an evening in the yard.

Games for a big family table of grown-ups

A family table can seat someone who's 25 next to someone who's 90, and the best family games on Thanksgiving day work for both from their chairs. Keep the rules to one sentence, make teams by where people sit instead of by family branch, and let anyone sit out a round.

• Whose handwriting? You need slips and pens. Everyone writes the same sentence, like "Please pass the rolls," and folds it. The host holds up each slip in turn and the table guesses whose hand wrote it, which takes about ten minutes.
• Fork or spoon, family style. Play the table game from above with pairs only this family understands, like the old house or the new one.

The two halves of the table

After the meal, many tables split in two. One half wants a loud team game. The other half wants to stay in their seats and keep talking. Fork or spoon and thirty seconds on gravy work for both, since they're played sitting down and still end with a winner. Here are seven of the 16 types and the half they tend to sit in:

• Ideator wants a game nobody at the table has played before, so they pitch the fishbowl and change a rule halfway.
• Vitalizer is first on their feet for charades and plays the gravy boat with full drama.
• Mentor stays in the talking half and asks the question that starts the oldest story.
• Commander wants teams, a score and the pictionary relay, and plans to win it.
• Dreamer stays at the table and notices how each person feels as the stories go round.
• Organizer runs the kitchen timer and the dish crew draw.
• Craftsman has the steadiest hands for the bean transfer.

These are tendencies from type theory, and many loud players love a long talk too. Read the list as a guess about your table and not as advice about anyone sitting at it.

See which friends sit in your half

Typeza tells you which relationship you and a friend have, and why one of you reaches for the slips while the other wants another hour of stories. It all begins with the free friendship compatibility test. After that, share your link with the friend who always ends up on your team.

Questions people ask

What games can adults play on Thanksgiving?

Fork or spoon and the laugh chain at the table, fishbowl and a human knot for a bigger group, charades and a pictionary relay with your own prompts, and minute challenges with beans, pasta and a potato.

What are good games to play at Thanksgiving dinner?

Pick games people can play sitting down, like fork or spoon, thirty seconds on gravy and whose handwriting.

How do you play Thanksgiving charades?

Each guest writes two prompts, one from today and one from a past Thanksgiving. Two teams take turns, each actor gets one minute with no words, and one object from the table may be used as a prop.

Written by Virko Kask, founder of Typeza
Written with the help of AI tools.