Friendsgiving Games: 10 Easy Ideas for Any Size Group

Friendsgiving games in 30 seconds

Good Friendsgiving games give a room of friends, partners and plus-ones a reason to talk, and they run without the host refereeing all night. Plan three, plus one spare: one for arrivals, one at the table and one after dinner.

• Arrivals: Find a Guest Who, a mixer that pairs up people who just met
• All night: Friendsgiving bingo, where squares fill in as the party happens
• At the table: Table Talk cards or Would You Rather, passed around between bites
• After dinner: team trivia, a word scramble race or charades
• Closer: a Thankful ABCs race, with 5 minutes on the clock and A to Z

What makes Friendsgiving different

Friendsgiving is a potluck with friends, not a family dinner with a shorter guest list. Some guests will only know one other person, and the host is cooking and trying to eat too.

So pick games that explain themselves in under a minute, that someone other than the host can run, and that never put one person on the spot in front of strangers. Team games and play-at-the-same-time games beat solo performances every time.

What you need

Most Friendsgiving games need paper, pens and about 15 minutes of prep the night before. Print on US Letter and use card stock for anything you cut apart.

• Pens or pencils for every guest, plus a few extras
• A phone timer for the timed rounds
• A bowl or basket for the cut-apart cards
• Small prizes that fit the night, like first slice of pie, the last roll or a pass on dish duty
• One guest who agrees to run the games while you handle the oven

10 Friendsgiving games, step by step

Games 1 to 8 match the pages in our Friendsgiving Games Bundle, so the counts below are what you get if you print it. You can also write your own versions on index cards.

• 1. Find a Guest Who. Hand out the 16-square sheet as people walk in. Each square is a prompt like "has run a Turkey Trot," "prefers apple pie" or "speaks more than one language," and guests hunt for a different person for each one and write their name. It does the introductions for you.
• 2. Friendsgiving bingo. Give each guest a card on arrival and let it play all night. Squares are things that happen at a Friendsgiving, like the mashed potatoes running out or a debate about the best pie. Five in a row wins. The bundle has 10 different cards, so neighbors don't win at the same moment.
• 3. Table Talk. Cut apart the 24 cards, put them in a bowl, and pass one around between courses. Each person answers out loud: "What's a food tradition from your family?" or "What tradition would you start with this group?" No points, just better conversation.
• 4. Would You Rather. Draw a card, everyone picks a side and defends it: "Host Friendsgiving every year or never host again?" or "Get the last slice of pie or the last roll?" The bundle has 24 cards, and they work seated, so they're good while people are still eating.
• 5. Friendsgiving trivia. Split into teams of 2 to 6 and read the 20 questions out loud, no phones. They cover the 1621 harvest feast, how Thanksgiving became a holiday, turkey facts and fall food.
• 6. Scrambled words race. Hand each team a sheet of 20 scrambled words (POTLUCK, CASSEROLE, LEFTOVERS, WISHBONE) and start the timer. First team with a correct sheet wins.
• 7. Friendsgiving charades. Teams take turns acting out a card with no words, and the team has 60 seconds to guess. The 24 prompts are things every guest recognizes, like "taking a food coma nap," "opening a stuck jar" and "squeezing into a crowded table."
• 8. Thankful ABCs. Set a 5-minute timer. Each player or team writes one thing they're thankful for for every letter from A to Z. Score 1 point per letter and 2 points for any answer nobody else wrote. It's a quick, low-key way to fit in the gratitude moment without a speech.
• 9. Guess who brought it. Before people eat, number the dishes and have guests write down who they think made each one. Reveal at dessert; most correct guesses wins. It works because Friendsgiving is a potluck and everyone already brought a clue.
• 10. Pie ranking. Set out a slice of every dessert and have each person rank them on a slip of paper. Read the rankings out loud. It's free and starts more friendly arguments than any boxed game.

Friendsgiving games by group size

Small group (4 to 8 friends): Would You Rather, Table Talk and team-of-two trivia. Skip the mixer if everyone already knows each other.

Large group (15 to 30 or more): choose games where everyone plays at once. Bingo, Find a Guest Who and the scrambled words race all scale because each person or team holds their own sheet. For trivia and charades, split into teams of 5 or 6 rather than one big circle. Print one bingo card per guest; with 10 different cards, you can repeat each card two or three times without many ties.

Friendsgiving games for adults: the bundle works as-is. For a later, louder crowd, add a pie-ranking showdown or play charades in teams with a tighter 45-second clock.

Friendsgiving games for teens and kids: bingo, charades and the word scramble work for teens. For younger kids at a mixed party, our Thanksgiving games for kids set has bingo, word search and I Spy pages, and the Thanksgiving escape room gives a team of kids 8 and up 6 puzzles to solve in 45 minutes.

A simple 3-game plan when the host is also a guest

You don't need ten games. Here's a plan that fills a whole evening and needs about two minutes of explaining in total.

• As guests arrive: hand out a Find a Guest Who sheet and a bingo card together. Bingo keeps going in the background all night.
• Between dinner and dessert: one round of team trivia, about 15 minutes. Collect the sheets, read the answers, give the winners first pick of pie.
• On the couch after dessert: charades or Would You Rather until people start reaching for their coats.
• Spare: Thankful ABCs, in case the room goes quiet or a few people arrive late.

Common mistakes (and easy fixes)

Most Friendsgiving games flop for reasons that have nothing to do with the game.

• Too many games. Planning ten turns the host into a full-time organizer. Pick three and keep one spare.
• Spotlight games with strangers. Asking someone's plus-one to perform alone is rough. Use teams.
• Starting the active game too late. Run charades before the food coma sets in, not at 11 PM.
• Inside-joke trivia. Questions about the friend group's history leave new people out. Keep trivia general and save the memories for Table Talk.
• No plan for the food. Share a potluck sign-up sheet a week or two ahead so you don't end up with six desserts and no sides.

Printable Friendsgiving games

If you want all of this ready tonight, the Friendsgiving Games Bundle is an 18-page US Letter PDF with 8 games: 20 trivia questions with an answer key, 24 Would You Rather cards, 10 different bingo cards, a 16-square Find a Guest Who mixer, a Thankful ABCs race, 20 scrambled words with an answer key, 24 charades cards and 24 Table Talk cards. Page 1 has hosting tips and a party scoreboard for all eight games. You can get the Friendsgiving games on Etsy.

Planning the food too? Our potluck sign-up sheet is an 8-page planner with an invitation, a sign-up by category (appetizers, mains, sides, salads, breads, desserts, drinks and supplies), an open sign-up, a menu planner, food labels with allergen checkboxes, a party day checklist and take-home leftover labels. It comes as a fillable PDF and an editable Word file. Its host guide suggests one main dish for every 6 to 8 guests. You can see the potluck planner on Etsy. Everything for the season is in our Thanksgiving and fall section.

Related ideas

Hosting a family Thanksgiving as well? These Thanksgiving games for adults lean toward the dinner table and mixed ages. Our holiday party games guide sorts games by occasion and group size, from Friendsgiving through New Year's Eve.