These Thanksgiving games are perfect for the Thanksgiving downtime. They’re great for kids, great for adults, and even better for families to all play together.
And nobody said they can only be Thanksgiving party games, try them at a Friendsgiving or fall feast if that works better for you! They’re the most fun Thanksgiving family games we’ve ever tried!
Best Thanksgiving Games
Ever since we’ve been married, we switch off holidays with my family and my in-laws. And every time it’s my in-laws’ turn for Thanksgiving, we seem to have a huge get together with food, fun, and lots of family.
This year I’m making this pumpkin crunch cake, pumpkin cheesecake bars, the best stuffing ever, cranberry orange bread, and of course – this holiday punch!
I decided party games aren’t just for Christmas, they’re perfect for that time before the Thanksgiving feast is ready or even the day after once your stomachs are all rested from eating so much food.
Watch the video below to see how fun these Thanksgiving games are! They’re great for kids or adults!
How to Play These Thanksgiving Games
All of these games are Minute to Win It style games and depending on the number of people playing, there are different ways you can play them.
Don’t know what what minute to win it games are? Start with my minute to win it games page that’s full of instructions, scoring ideas, and more! You could also just pick and choose a few of the games to play however you want – no minutes necessary!
You can play these games in one of three ways:
Style #1: Minute to Win It for Individuals – Man vs. Clock
In this version, one player will be trying to beat the clock for each game. Players will have to finish the game in a minute to win a prize.
You could also let the same person continue playing games until they can’t finish one in a minute. Or you could have everyone playing individually all at the same time and see who all can finish the challenge in a minute.
Style #2: Minute to Win It for Groups
In this style, you’ll pick two players for each game who will going head to head against each other playing a game rather than trying to beat the clock. The first person to finish wins the prize.
Style #3: Minute to Win It for Teams
In this style, you’ll split your group into two (or 3 or 10 depending on the number of guests) teams. For each game, teams must choose one player to compete head to head in the game with the other teams.
When you say go, one player from team tries to complete the game. First team to finish gets 5 points, second team gets 3, third team gets 1, and everyone else gets none. This works best if you have quite a few people and is a good way to get everyone involved cheering for their team.
Fun Thanksgiving Family Games
1 – The Mayflower
Supplies: Under the bed storage container, small corks, fake flowers, and plastic straws (optional)
How to Play:
Fill one of those big long under the bed storage containers with water. Give everyone a small cork with a fake flower stuck into it and have them put in on one end of the storage container.
To win, player must be the first one to get their cork from one end of the storage container to the other, by only blowing on it. They can either blow on it alone or through a plastic straw. First cork “boat” to touch the other end wins.
2 – Face the Pie
Supplies: Gummy ABC letters, pie tins, and spray whipped cream (or real whipped cream works too)
How to Play:
Before the party, pull out gummy letters that spell P-I-E for each letter. Put one letter of each of those words into an empty aluminum pie tin. (This pack of 50 pie tins would be perfect.)
Fill each of those pin tins with spray whipped cream and put in the refrigerator so they don’t melt while you’re waiting to play.
To play, players must race to eat through their pies to find the letters inside. Once they find the letters inside, they must unscramble them to create the Thanksgiving themed word you came up with. Make sure to give each player an extra pie tin to toss their found letters into for unscrambling!
Oh and and throughout everything, even unscrambling, they can only use their mouth.
3 – The Goblet Gobble
Supplies: Plastic goblets, orange ping pong balls
How to Play:
Purchase glass or plastic goblets like these ones and place one per team/player on a table on a far side of the room. On the other side of the room, place orange ping pong balls.
To play, players must transfer three ping pong balls from the table to their goblet on the opposite side of the room. The catch? They can only touch (and hold) the ping pong ball between their chin and their neck.
4 – Feather Float
Supplies: Small light feathers
How to Play:
Give each player a fake feather like these ones.
To play, players must blow the feather in the air and keep it floating in the air as long as possible.
If you’re playing individual style games, they must keep it up for a minute. If you’re playing team or head to head, whoever keeps it up longest.
Don’t Leave Any Leftovers
Supplies: Plastic food, Thanksgiving (or just orange) cups, and Thanksgiving colored paper plates.
How to Play:
Place a piece of plastic or fake food (this set has some great Thanksgiving things like “turkey legs”) on top of a Thanksgiving cup that’s turned upside down, three cups and three pieces of food for each player.
To win, players must knock off three pieces of food by tossing Thanksgiving paper plates like frisbees from the other side of the room.
5 – Football Flick
Supplies: Paper footballs (or mini footballs), buckets and pots, masking tape and markers to adding scores
How to Play:
Give each player paper footballs or these mini footballs and line up a bunch of buckets or baskets at varying length. Tape a number to each of the buckets – the furthest one should be 7 points, the middle should be 3 points, and the closest should be 1.
Players have one minute to flick (like you’re playing paper football) footballs into the buckets, scoring as many points as possible in the minute. Or have teams play simultaneously by using different colored footballs, and see who can get to 21 points first.
Or if that’s too hard, see who can make a football into any bucket first.
6 – Grateful for Speed
Supplies: Gratitude game and treats
How to Play:
Make a gratitude game box like this one but instead of acts of gratitude, have a couple of them be filled with Thanksgiving treats and the other ones empty. If they punch an empty one, they have to say something they are grateful for. If they punch one that has a treat, they get to eat the treat and be done. Players take turns punching a circle until they’ve all found a Thanksgiving treat.
Shake Your Tail Feathers
Supplies: Rectangle tissue boxes, panty hose, and feathers
How to Play:
Before the party, empty a tissue box for each player and replace the tissues with craft feathers. Tape a pair of pantyhose onto each box so the box is in the middle of the pantyhose.
To play, give each player a box tied with pantyhose and have them tie the pantyhose around their waist so the tissue box is on their backside. Players must move around and shake until all of the feathers fall out of their tissue box.
7 – Please Pass the Corn
Supplies: Candy corn, popsicle sticks, and a shallow bowl or pie tin.
How to Play:
This game is played in pairs. Give each team two popsicle sticks sticks, a bowl full of candy corn, and then put an empty bowl at the other side of the table. Both players should put their popsicle sticks in their mouth.
To play, the player furthest from the empty bowl picks up a piece of candy corn and sticks it on the popsicle stick with their hand. They must then transfer the candy corn from their popsicle stick to their teammate’s popsicle stick (no hands – just popsicle sticks held in mouths) and the second teammate must transfer the piece of candy corn to the empty bowl. If they miss the bowl, it doesn’t count.
The team that gets the most candy corn transferred successfully into their bowl in a minute wins.
8 – Traffic Yam
Supplies: Raw yams, metal spoons, and painter’s tape (or something else to make a line)
How to Play:
Give each player a raw yam (sweet potato) and have them put it on the ground on one side of the room. Players must race to get their yam from one side of the room to cross a line (taped down with painter’s tape) on the other side of the room and then get back to the starting line. Players can only move the yam by pushing it with the spoon.
This one is the most hilarious if you have multiple people play at the same time because the yams tend to go in crazy directions. Players can also push other people’s yams to play defense as well, just whoever gets their yam across the line first.
9 – Reverse Traffic Yam
Supplies: Raw yams, metal spoons, and painter’s tape (or something else to make a line)
How to Play:
Give each player a raw yam and a metal spoon. Players must place the yam on their spoon and walk across the room and back holding the yam on their spoon (like an egg race). If the yam falls on the ground, they must go back to the beginning and start over.
Make it even more difficult by making people walk backward! First player to cross the line with their yam safely in their spoon wins.
10 – Corn to Copia
Supplies: Fake corn, empty cornucopia, blindfold
How to Play:
This game requires two players per team. Give one player on each team a large empty fake cornucopia and blindfold them and have them stand on one side of the room.
Have the other player stand about ten feet away and give them a bucket full of plastic or stuffed corns (we used little Indian corns like these ones).
To play, the first player must hike (football style) the corn to their teammate who must catch three, blindfolded. Or if that’s too tough, catch one. Players can talk to each other to help direct their teammate.
11 – Turkey Bowl
Supplies: Fish bowl, stuffed or plastic turkey, colored ping pong balls
How to Play:
Place a fish bowl with a plastic or stuffed turkey (this guy is so cute!) in the middle of a room.
Place a large bowl of colored ping pong balls (different colors in each bowl) 10 feet away from the fish bowl in the four directions (to the right, to the left, in front of, behind), so you have the fish bowl in the middle and ping pong bowls forming a circle/square around it.
To play, players have to race to be the first to land one (or more if your teams are good) ping pong ball in the turkey bowl just by bouncing it.
jane teasly says
We were able to play corn to copia as a family. What a great way to end spend the night with family. We got a little messy at our aunt’s house, so we offered to pitch in to pay for the carpet cleaning. What a great game idea
Britni Vigil says
I’m so glad you all enjoyed the game!
Shirley Shain says
We have about a dozen little kiddos who are going to be running all over the house for a late Thanksgiving get-together. We had an absolute mess on our hands last year. I didn’t plan any activities for the kids and ended up with markers on the walls and carpet. I had to call a carpet cleaner to help me get my home back in order. This year, the adults are going to enjoy the bowl game while the kids are “shaking their tailfeathers.”
Britni Vigil says
Love it! Hope they have fun!
Britney Jones says
So fun! We always have fun at Thanksgiving at my house, but I think that these games will be a fun new tradition to start! I’m already prepping for guests to come over by having the carpet cleaner come by and decorating around the house, but obviously, the most important thing will be seeing family and having fun together. Thanks for the ideas!
Alicia Ortego says
Thanks for the cool games. They are nice and family-friendly. I’m sure these games can create fun and cozy evenings for the whole family.
Jan E says
What is the Roll the Turkey dice game?
Britni Vigil says
You can find all the details here — https://www.playpartyplan.com/roll-a-turkey/
May Schmtt says
I love your website. It is the greatest for ideas for family get togethers, grandkids parties & weekend times. It is also a great source of ideas for fun games for my sewing club. Thank you very much.