Thanksgiving Charades

What is Thanksgiving charades?

Thanksgiving charades is the classic acting game with a holiday theme: one player acts out a word or phrase without speaking, and the team guesses it. This page gives you 124 original Thanksgiving charades ideas about the turkey and the cooking, the dinner table, the parade and the football game, relatives arriving, and the rest of fall.

The generator above is the Charades Generator, opened on its Thanksgiving set. Every idea was written for it, and none of them is a film, book or song title, so a seven-year-old and a grandparent can guess the same card.

How to play Thanksgiving charades

1. Split into two or more teams and agree on the time per turn and the number of rounds.
2. One player from the first team, the actor, taps Next word, reads the card in secret and taps Hide.
3. The actor acts it out in silence: no talking, no mouthing words, no writing letters in the air and no pointing at things in the room.
4. The actor’s team calls out guesses. Each correct guess is a point, and the actor takes the next card.
5. When the time is up, the next team plays. After the last round, the team with the most points wins.

To let the phone keep the time and the score, open Team game: name 2 to 6 teams and pick 30, 60, 90 or 120 seconds per turn. A game of 2 teams and 3 rounds is 6 turns, so about 6 minutes at 60 seconds a turn. The usual silent signals (number of words, sounds like) are in the table of charades hand signals.

Thanksgiving charades ideas

Here is the full list of all 124 Thanksgiving charades words and phrases, sorted by level. Use it as it is, or let the generator pick for you.

Thanksgiving charades for kids

Kids mode keeps the 94 easy and medium cards a child can act, such as a turkey strutting or jumping into a pile of leaves. Turn it on with the Kids mode switch under the card. For children who cannot read yet, an adult whispers the card. These 18 are good ones to start with:

• A turkey
• Eating pumpkin pie
• Pulling the wishbone
• Passing the gravy
• Saying what you're thankful for
• Watching the parade
• A marching band
• Jumping into a pile of leaves
• Leaves falling
• A squirrel hiding acorns
• Hugging grandma
• Too full to move
• A turkey strutting
• Tracing your hand to draw a turkey
• A turkey gobbling
• Eating a drumstick
• Carrying a pumpkin
• Holding hands around the table

Printable Thanksgiving charades cards

A sheet of 36 Thanksgiving charades cards for the whole family (15 easy and 21 medium). Download the picture, print it and cut along the dashed lines, then fold the cards into a bowl or a hat. To print the whole set instead, open Print cards in the generator: all 124 ideas as cut-out cards on 6 pages, or as a plain list.

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Hard Thanksgiving charades for adults

For teens and adults, set the level to hard: 27 cards that are abstract or need several steps, such as a food coma, Crimping a pie crust, Holiday traffic. They are clean, and they are hard to act. This second sheet has 36 of the tougher cards (12 medium and 24 hard).

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Tips for Thanksgiving charades

• Play after dinner, standing up. It gets everyone off the couch, and acting on a full stomach is part of the fun.
• Let the kids' table go first. Children act the easy cards while the adults guess. Then swap, with the hard cards.
• Act the food last. For pouring gravy on mashed potatoes, show the pouring first. The team will name the food by itself.
• Keep score on the phone. The team game counts the points, so nobody has to argue about them over pie.

Ways to play

• While the turkey rests: a quick round of easy cards, 30 seconds a turn, keeps hungry guests out of the kitchen.
• After dinner: two teams across the generations, 60 seconds a turn, five rounds. The losing team does the dishes.
• In class in the week before the holiday: switch on Kids mode, and let whoever guesses act next.
• On a video call with family far away: the actor performs for the camera and both households guess.

More holiday charades and games

More sets of the same game: Christmas Charades (227 ideas) and Halloween Charades (134 ideas). The full Charades Generator has 16 categories, from animals and jobs to idioms. For a quiet game at the same party, try the Thanksgiving Word Scramble, or a round of Would You Rather.