Thanksgiving Games for Adults: 8 Ideas for After Dinner

The dishes are stacked, the pie is half gone and nobody wants to move from the table yet. These Thanksgiving games for adults are made for exactly that hour: quick to explain, fun with a full stomach and good with a mix of ages and personalities.

1. Pass the Dishes

A card game for 2–8 players where you pick one dish card and pass the rest – just like the real dinner. It has real choices for grown-ups: Gravy is worth more with every Turkey, Cranberry Sauce only counts in pairs, and the player with the fewest Green Beans loses points. A game takes about 10–15 minutes.

2. Expert trivia

Skip the easy questions. Ask the Expert level: In which year did Congress make the fourth Thursday of November the official date? Which Founding Father praised the turkey? Keep score on a napkin.

3. Charades – tricky cards only

“Stuck in holiday traffic”, “the dog stealing food”, “loosening your belt after dinner” – the tricky cards are where adults shine. Play in two teams with a one-minute timer.

4. Who’s Thankful?

Everyone writes one thing they are thankful for, anonymously. One player reads the slips, the others guess who wrote each one. Funny answers are allowed; kind ones are required.

5. Two truths and a turkey

No printing needed: each person tells two true stories from past Thanksgivings and one made-up one. The table votes on the fake.

6. Leftover menu challenge

Everyone invents the best sandwich they can make from tonight’s leftovers and describes it. The cook chooses the winner.

7. The thankful alphabet

Go around the table: the first person says something they are thankful for that starts with A, the next with B, and so on. Stuck for 5 seconds? You pass.

8. Bingo for the whole room

When the kids join in, picture bingo is the one game everyone can play at once – up to 30 players with the full set of cards.

Print the cards

Pass the Dishes, the trivia questions, charades cards, thankful slips and bingo are all in our printable Thanksgiving Family Game Pack. The free edition has Pass the Dishes and 6 bingo cards, so you can try the card game first. More ideas for every age: Thanksgiving games for the whole family.

Download the free editionSee the full game pack

Personal use only.