20 Fun Friendsgiving Game Ideas That Will Keep Everyone Entertained
This post is all about Friendsgiving game ideas.
Friendsgiving is one of the best days of the year. This day, typically the week of Thanksgiving in the US, celebrates all things great about Thanksgiving but with your friends! Friendsgiving is a time to gather around the table and enjoy some delicious food and it doesn’t have to be the traditional turkey, pumpkin pie and stuffing. It’s also a time to play fun Friendsgiving games with family and friends alike.
With my list of Friendsgiving game ideas, you can keep guests entertained for the entire day.
What Do You Do For Friendsgiving?
Friendsgiving is a Thanksgiving dinner without the formality that often intimidates newcomers. It’s all about gathering friends and family for simple, rustic food, usually potluck style, to celebrate. It doesn’t have any specific rules, so the event can go as formal or informal as you want it to.
It started back in 2007 when a group of girlfriends got together to celebrate their friendship by cooking Thanksgiving dinner for each other (hence “Friendsgiving”). The idea quickly spread through social media (i.e. Instagram, Pinterest, etc) and now you can find Friendsgiving celebrations happening all over North America.
The day has grown so popular that people are even hosting Friendsgivings across Europe! There’s no reason not to get your own friends together for some food and fun this year as well as entertaining guests with games- after all, who doesn’t love to play games?
READ: 10 Friendsgiving Ideas To Make Your Holiday More Fun
Friendsgiving Game Ideas
Your guests will enjoy playing childhood and adult games and it’s a great way to keep them entertained before the big Friendsgiving celebration. The other thing we recommend is giving away prizes to the winners. Since you’ll be playing multiple games, make sure you have enough prizes to give away. When sending out invites to your Friendsgiving party, make sure to mention games and prizes on the invitation to get guests even more excited for the event.
Friendsgiving is a day to gather with family and friends, so you want everyone’s attention on each other. There are different Friendsgiving game ideas that are popular all across the globe, but here are our favorites. I even included popular Thanksgiving games!
1. Guess Who?
One of my favorite Friendsgiving game ideas I like to play. This classic game may be played face-to-face or over Zoom. Ask a question starting with “What is your favorite television show?” Players take turns asking questions, narrowing down the possible choices until someone guesses whom they’re thinking of.
2. Charades
If you’re looking for fun Friendsgiving party game ideas, this is the one! The goal of this game is for people to act out clues for their teammates to guess what they are attempting to convey without speaking or using body language alone — it’s great party fun! One person from each team comes up to the front of a room and has 60 seconds to convey as many words as possible. The teammates must guess what they are trying to portray before time runs out.
3. Pictionary
Pictionary is one of my favorite games to play at Friendsgiving. Similar to charades, the goal of this game is for players to draw clues on paper without speaking. It’s a great way for people who don’t know each other well yet to get acquainted! One person from each team comes up and has one minute or less (depending upon how many words they have) to convey as many words as possible.
The people guessing must guess what the drawing is before time runs out. This game can get pretty hilarious, so we recommend setting some ground rules at the beginning of the play to keep things fun and fair for everyone involved!
4. Karaoke
Many will say karaoke is the best Friendsgiving game to help your friends get out of their comfort zone. And your don’t need to rent a karaoke machine to do so. Luckily for us, there are a number of apps out there now that allow you to make your own karaoke music video. Among all the other Friendsgiving game ideas, this is a blockbuster! In this game, players can sing along with their favorite tunes using these tools and belting it out as loud as they want!
The goal is for each player or team to show off their vocal chops — whoever gets the most likes on their video is crowned the winner! Of course, you can also just play this game using YouTube and songs that everyone knows. The possibilities are endless when it comes to karaoke songs: whether you’re belting out a classic tune or jamming to your latest fave, there’s no wrong way to do it!
5. UNO
Another one of my favorite Friendsgiving activities is playing Uno. This card game is perfect for people of all ages and requires only a deck (or two) to get started. To play, each player must try to rid their hand of cards by playing matching numbers or colors on the table in front of them.
Once you’ve played your first card, other players can challenge you if they have any cards that match your play. If a challenge is issued, the two players must show their cards and whoever has the higher number or color wins the round! The first player to reach 500 points loses.
6. Drinking Jenga
If you’re looking for Friendsgiving drinking games to play, then you’ll love this drinking game. We all know that Jenga is a great game to play when you want to get tipsy, but there are plenty of ways to make it even more fun! For example, players can baby-proof the tower by making rules like “no hands,” or “everyone one must drink” for each block removed.
This game can get pretty wild, so we suggest playing with like-minded people who won’t take things too far or get drunk easily. If you’re worried about the amount of drinking that will be happening at your Friendsgiving this year, consider removing alcohol completely from the equation and play a more wholesome version of Jenga!
Different drinks call for different challenges. For example, if you’re playing with beer, players who remove a block must drink the number of drinks that corresponds to how many blocks were needed for removal (i.e., three blocks = one shot).
If drinking isn’t your style or there’s someone in your group who doesn’t want to participate, these games are still a lot of fun to play with non-alcoholic beverages.
7. Never Have I Ever
We recommend playing this game with people you feel comfortable around. In the same way that drinking games can get a little wild, Never Have I Ever is also best played by those who won’t take things too far.
This classic party game involves one player beginning a “Never have I ever” statement and then naming something they’ve never done. The goal is for the other players to raise their hands if they have done that thing. Add this to the “funny Friendsgiving games to play” list!
8. Friendsgiving Quiz Game
Here’s a fun Friendsgiving games printable you might enjoy. To really test your friends’ knowledge of each other, play this fun trivia game. The rules are simple: one person takes the quiz sheet and reads all 25 questions out loud to everyone else. Whoever has the most answers correct is crowned the winner!
Questions can vary from light-hearted “what’s my best friend’s favorite food?” to more serious questions like “who has a sibling that passed away recently.” You know your friends and their preferences better than we do, so feel free to create custom quiz questions for them. This game works really well with 20 questions.
For a real Friendsgiving treat, make everyone’s answers anonymous by writing them down on slips of paper! This will encourage people to answer honestly because no one knows who said what. If you do this, be sure not to reveal answers until the end of the game so that players are still trying their best throughout all twenty rounds.
9. Capture the Flag
Capture the Flag is a fun game kids and adults can enjoy. This is one of those Friendsgiving game ideas that are always a hit at sleepovers and campouts, but it’s also fun to play with friends in your own backyard. You’ll need two flags (one for each team) that you can hide somewhere when the game starts.
Each flag should be placed on its own side of an even playing field — like a lawn or park.
The object of this game is to find and capture the other team’s flag in order to score a point. With each successful raid, your team gets one point and you get twenty seconds closer to victory! If neither side can successfully steal the opposing flag within ten minutes or less (five if there are only two players on each team), then the game ends.
To make the game even more fun, play the Capture the Flag game lights version at night with your friends.
10. Heads Up!
As the host, here’s another cool game to add to your “Good Friendsgiving games and activities” list. This game is great because it can be played with anywhere from two to twenty people! The game Heads Up! uses real-life objects as clues for word categories that show up on the card (i.e., “food” or “animal”).
When it’s your turn, hold the card up to your forehead. Your team will then need to describe or act out something from the category — but they cannot say any of the words in that category! The game will be passed to each around until you guess correctly what is on the card. Then you move on to the next card and keep playing until the time runs out.
READ: 13 Best Friendsgiving Gift Ideas Your Host Will Love
11. First Letter Game
Among the Friendsgiving game ideas on this list, this game is fun to play with a larger group because it guarantees that everyone will have two chances during each round. You’ll need at least four people for this one! Here’s how the rules work: one person begins by saying the first letter of an object in the room.
The next player then has to say a word that starts with the last letter of that object’s name. This continues until you get one wrong, and then play moves on to another category! The first person who gets two objects in a row right wins.
12. Family Feud (with Friends!)
I’m such a huge Family Feud fan which is why I had to add it to this Friendsgiving Game Ideas list! We all know how addicting Steve Harvey’s Family Feud can be — and this game is no different. We’ve turned the classic formula into a fun competitive Friendsgiving game event!
To play, come up with five questions that all relate to Thanksgiving or your group of friends (i.e., “Name something you’re thankful for,” “What was the best part about high school?” or “What’s the best Thanksgiving dish?”).
Once you have your questions, divide everyone into two teams. The first team will write down all of their answers for each question on a piece of paper without consulting with one another — no conferring! Once they’re finished writing, it’ll be time to answer. Everyone will get 60 seconds to answer each question on a larger whiteboard.
You can also buy the physical version just in case you run out of questions. There’s an even a virtual version if you plan to have a virtual Friendsgiving.
13. Two Truths & A Lie
In this game, you’ll need to think fast if you want to win! Each player will get a turn at describing two truths about themselves and one lie. The group has only 30 seconds before the next person gets their chance — but everyone can keep track of who said what by writing it down on paper or using their phones. Another one of my favorite Friendsgiving game ideas to enjoy with friends!
14. I Spy
This game is simple but incredibly fun! All players can choose an object in the room. The first person then says, “I spy something that is __,” and fills in a description for what they see (i.e., blue or fuzzy).
The next player has to think of an object whose description matches the one given by the previous person — so when someone says “blue,” you might say “pen.”
15. Taboo
This game is perfect for competitive friends who want to get the most laughs! In this classic board game, each team will take turns coming up with a word that their teammates have to try and guess. Players can’t use any of the forbidden words listed on the card — and if they do, then their whole team gets an “X.”
16. Who Am I?
This game is perfect for friends who want to find out more about one another without revealing too much personal information. One person at your gathering can act as “It” and select a famous person — then each player at the table will ask questions to try and guess who it is.
17. Dirty Charades (A Twist On A Classic!)
For Friendsgiving game night with adults, you’ll love this game! In this X-rated version of Charades, one person will act out a dirty word or phrase without using any words — but they do have to make sure everyone knows what they’re trying to say. The rest of the players have 30 seconds to guess as many words or phrases as possible, and then it’s time for a new person!
18. Catchphrase
This classic game is perfect for competitive friends! You’ll need at least three players, but the more people you have playing the better — plus it works well with larger groups.
The object of this game is to get your team members to guess a word or phrase that’s on a card in front of them by saying one simple catchphrase. For example, if the word is “chicken,” you might say cluck-cluck!
To play this game, one player will pick a card and read out their phrase or word. Everyone else on that team has to come up with a catchphrase as quickly as possible — but they can only use the words listed in front of them.
19. Phone A Friend
In this game, everyone needs to have their phones out and ready! You’ll also need a “phone a friend” lifeline — which is included in the deck of cards. The person who draws one card from the pile can choose someone they know on speakerphone for help guessing words or phrases that come from the deck.
20. Trivia Showdown
This game works well with larger groups because you’ll need two teams. One team will act as “Team A,” while the other acts as “Team B.” Each player can pick a category (i.e., music, science, or sports) and write down three answers in their notebooks. Then, you’ll need to give each person on Team A 30 seconds to write down as many answers in the category they chose (without using any of the same words).
When time’s up, one player from your team will stand up and read out all three of their answers for that round — while everyone else writes them down. Then, Team B will have to guess the answers. If you get them all right then that counts as one point — but if they miss even one answer or time out then your team gets a point!
Then it’s time for Round Two where everyone switches teams and picks new categories. Whichever team has more points at the end of both rounds wins!
Friendsgiving Game Ideas- Final Thoughts
If you’re hosting your own Friendsgiving at home this year, it may be worthwhile to make jot down some Friendsgiving game ideas ahead of time and I hope this list helped. A little friendly competition between friends can do wonders for getting a party going! Of course, games can be as simple or complex as you want them to be. The most important thing to do at a Friendsgiving is let loose and have fun with your friends. Hopefully, you’ve enjoyed our list of Friendsgiving game ideas.
Which of these Friendsgiving game ideas is your favorite? Share your thoughts by commenting below!
