Thanksgiving Activities

With Thanksgiving coming up fast on Thursday, I wanted to give you guys some fun ideas to increase the fun of the celebration with your family. I suffer from stomach problems and had to quit drinking, so things started getting a little boring for me at holiday events with my family. So, I used my creativity and started coming up with fun games for my family to play together when we all gathered together on the holidays. I started the games last Thanksgiving and did them for Christmas Eve as well. (My mom hosts both of those holidays at our house). I hope you like these ideas and that you might be able to take advantage of them and bring tons of fun to your family on Thursday!



The first game that I came up with last Thanksgiving was one that turned into tons of laughs and we got to know a lot about each other that we wouldn't have known otherwise. 
1. Get enough paper and pens for everyone.
2. Have everyone write down something about themselves that nobody knows about them. 
3. Have everyone fold up their "fact" and put it in the center of the table and mix them all up.
4. Read out the first fact and have everyone write down a guess to who they think it is in the room that wrote it down. The person who wrote it will write "ME" on their piece of paper.
5. On the count of 3, reveal your answers and all who have guessed it right get a point. 
6. Repeat steps 4 + 5 until all of the facts have been read and all points have been given.
Whoever has the most points at the end, wins. You can have prizes that can we won if you want. I gave a Dunkin Donuts gift card to the winner. 
Warning: You never know what facts your family members might write down. So if there are children in the room, you might have to word things differently so that the kids don't understand. For example, one of the facts my family wrote down wasn't inappropriate, it was that they believed in Santa Clause until they were 12 and there was a kid in the room who still believed in Santa. So we had to word it differently. 



The next game that you could play is trivia. What I do is try to make it trivia that my family knows and enjoys. You could make it sort of Jeopardy-like and make a poster like the one seen below or you can just read the questions out loud and go through the different categories yourself. The Jeopardy-like poster allows your family to choose what category they want in what order and what difficulty order they want the questions in:.

Notice how I have created 5 different categories. "Kids" so that the children can get involved. Put fun facts about Frozen, or Disney shows like Austin & Ally or Jessie. The kids love being able to participate and they feel so good when they get something right! 

The "All in the Family" category is trivia about our family, but it's not stuff that is too easy. Each question in the category gets more and more difficult as you go down the line from 1 point to 5 points. 

You can split your family into two teams and have them write down their answers and for each correct answer, they get the allotted points. The team that gets the most points wins. Prizes optional again. 

The next game is SUPER easy and fun. This year, I wrote everyone a quick "thank you" letter about why I appreciate having them in my life and with the letter gave them a sheet of stickers with their names on the back in case they misplaced it. 

What you have everyone do is through out the day, try to get the stickers on other people WITHOUT THEM NOTICING. The first person to get rid of all of their stickers wins. Prizes are optional. 

This is an example of one of the letters with instructions and the sticker sheet.

The final game that I am suggesting to you today is a little bit more difficult. You can do a murder mystery game. You are going to have to be the narrator and probably the murder victim as well so that all can get involved. Come up with different motives for everyone to be the murder. Then you'll have to hide clues around the house and riddles on how to find them. Obviously the first person who figures out who the murderer is, wins. This game takes creativity and I admit it was a bit difficult to organize. But thankfully, it all worked out in the end and my family enjoyed it. 

My family greatly appreciated me putting together games like this and last Thanksgiving I was very pleased because my grandmother said it was the best Thanksgiving she's ever had. Sadly, she won't be with us on Thursday and it was her last Thanksgiving with us. So I'm glad to have made her final one a great one. Your family will love these games and it's almost impossible not have fun playing games with your family. 

I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving, and like always, feel free to email me with questions. jessica_panza@yahoo.com