12 Thanksgiving Drinking Games With Free Printables for the Adults Table Only

These thanksgiving drinking games are built for a Friendsgiving table where the adults want something sharper than a board game and classier than a college drinking contest. Six printable sheets, six no-prep games, and every single one works just as well with sparkling cider or a mocktail, so nobody sits a round out because they are not drinking alcohol.

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1. The Sip Trivia Round

Each guest gets a quiz sheet covering Thanksgiving history, food facts, and pop culture (think: the year the Macy’s parade launched, which president tried to pardon the first turkey). Players circle their answers silently, then the host reads the answer key aloud. One sip for a wrong answer, one sip for every question where you are the only person in the room who got it right, because that level of confidence deserves a consequence.

Print one sheet per guest on regular copy paper, no cardstock needed. The round takes about twelve minutes. You need nothing beyond pens and the sheet. Read the answers one at a time and let the groaning happen naturally before you move on.

The common mistake is rushing through the key. Pause after each reveal: that gap is where the game lives. If your group is very competitive, tally wrong answers and give a small forfeit (singing the first line of a harvest song) to whoever lands last on the scoreboard.

2. Drink When the Relative Mentions Politics

The host announces a list of five trigger phrases at the start of dinner: anything involving a party name, the words ‘the economy,’ ‘border,’ ‘mainstream media,’ or ‘did you see what they did,’ spoken by anyone at the table. When a trigger phrase lands, everyone raises a glass, makes eye contact with the speaker, and sips. No commentary, no debate. The sip is the response.

No printing, no setup, no supplies beyond whatever is already in the glasses. Announce the list once, clearly, before the first dish is passed. Five triggers is the right number: enough to catch the inevitable moments, few enough that people remember the rules.

The trap is letting the game become a debate prompt. The entire point is the silent sip, which is far funnier and far less combustible than an actual argument. If someone tries to argue their trigger phrase was not political, that person takes an extra sip for the appeal.

3. Never Have I Ever, Thanksgiving Edition

Each card carries five Thanksgiving-specific ‘Never Have I Ever’ statements, the kind that are embarrassing enough to be funny but not so personal that anyone shuts down. Prompts run along the lines of ‘Never have I ever fallen asleep before dessert was served’ or ‘Never have I ever lied about who made the stuffing.’ Anyone who HAS done it drinks (or eats a crouton, if they prefer a food forfeit). The statements are printed on cards, so the host does not have to think on her feet.

Print on cardstock, cut six cards per sheet, and scatter them down the table before guests sit. No host facilitation needed: guests pick up a card and read it aloud whenever there is a lull. Good for eight to twenty people, takes as long as the table wants it to.

Avoid statements that require guests to reveal genuinely private information. Keep everything in the realm of food, family, and holidays. If one prompt lands flat, skip it: there are thirty on the sheet and nobody is counting.

4. The Toast Round, Everyone in Turn

Starting with the host and moving clockwise, every person at the table gives a toast of exactly two sentences: one thing they are grateful for this year, one thing they are relieved is over. The table drinks after each. The ‘relieved it is over’ clause is what saves this from becoming a greeting card: it lets people be honest without being maudlin.

No printing, no supplies. The only rule is two sentences, not one, not five. The host sets the tone by going first and keeping it lightly funny. Allow about ninety seconds per person and seat ten to twelve people maximum before it starts to drag.

If someone freezes, give them permission to skip and return at the end. The pressure to perform on demand is the thing that kills a toast round. Removing that pressure quietly usually means they come back with something better than anyone else said.

5. Would You Rather With Forfeits

Each card poses a Thanksgiving-specific dilemma with two genuinely uncomfortable options. ‘Would you rather eat only turkey for a month or never eat pie again?’ and ‘Would you rather host every Thanksgiving for the next ten years or never attend one?’ Guests must choose, cannot abstain, and the minority answer (fewer people who chose that side) takes a sip. Cards also carry a printed forfeit: if the table is split fifty-fifty, both sides do it.

Print on cardstock, cut six per sheet. The forfeit printed on each card keeps things moving without the host having to improvise consequences. Works for six to twenty guests. Deal out cards to whoever wants to run one, or let guests draw from a pile in the middle.

The mechanic only works if people genuinely commit to an answer. Allow ten seconds of deliberation, then call it. Anyone who still will not choose takes the sip automatically: fence-sitting is its own forfeit.

6. The Blind Wine Tasting

The host wraps three to five bottles of wine in foil or brown paper bags and numbers them. Every guest pours a small taste from bottle one, notes what they think it is (variety, region, rough price point), writes it on a slip of paper or the back of a napkin, and passes the bottle. At the end, the host reveals each bottle. Closest guess on variety wins a small prize. Worst guess on price takes a sip from whichever bottle they most wrongly judged.

No printing needed. You need foil or paper bags, a pen per guest, and ideally three to five different wines (one white, one orange or rose, one red minimum). Budget sixty minutes for the full round including reveals and arguing. Keep the portions small: this is tasting, not a full pour per bottle per person.

Buy at least one bottle nobody will recognise: a skin-contact orange wine or a domestic sparkling tends to throw even people who think they know wine. That moment of collective confusion is the best part of the game.

7. The Family Bingo Card

Each guest gets a unique bingo card filled with Thanksgiving cliches: ‘someone brings up a diet,’ ‘the gravy is cold,’ ‘a phone rings during grace,’ ‘football argument,’ ‘someone mentions they are not drinking this year.’ During dinner and the hours around it, players quietly mark off squares as the moments happen in real life. First to five in a row calls bingo and picks someone to take a sip. The winner also takes one for good luck.

Print one card per guest, and because the cards are randomised grids, guests cannot copy each other. Good for any group size. No host facilitation required once the cards are handed out: the game runs itself over the course of the meal.

The version that does not work: handing cards out after dinner starts and expecting people to remember what already happened. Hand them out before anyone sits down so they have been watching all along. Pencils work better than pens at the table because gravy happens.

8. Guess Who Said It, With Penalties

The sheet presents twelve quotes: half are famous Thanksgiving or harvest-related lines from films, TV, politicians, and chefs, half are completely made up. Guests decide whether each quote is real and, if real, who said it. One sip for a wrong attribution, two sips for confidently insisting a made-up quote is real (the host calls this one). The mix of genuine and fake quotes makes even well-read guests feel pleasantly uncertain.

Print one per guest. Works at eight to twenty people. The round takes ten to fifteen minutes. Pens required, nothing else. Read the answer key aloud yourself rather than letting guests self-mark: hearing who actually said each one is half the entertainment.

The mistake to avoid is making the real quotes too obscure. At least half should be recognisable from something most guests have seen: ‘Friends,’ ‘Gilmore Girls,’ or a presidential proclamation works better than an eighteenth-century pamphlet. The made-up quotes should sound plausible, not absurd, that is the whole difficulty.

9. Charades With a Forfeit

Standard charades, but every word and phrase is Thanksgiving-specific: dishes, parade floats, holiday films, relatives everyone has, and harvest traditions. The performing player acts out the phrase without sound. If the table does not guess in sixty seconds, the actor takes a sip. If they do guess, whoever shouts the correct answer hands a sip to the person sitting to their left, because winning should not be entirely free.

No printing needed. Write phrases on folded slips of paper before guests arrive and collect them in a bowl. Twenty phrases is enough for a full round. Aim for a mix of easy (pumpkin pie), medium (the Macy’s parade balloon handler), and hard (awkward silence after someone mentions an ex). A phone timer handles the sixty-second rule.

Groups that are too polite freeze up when acting: they mime tiny, neat gestures and nothing is funny. Tell the first performer to go big and physical from the start. Once one person commits to a full-body turkey impression, the room relaxes and every round after is better.

10. The Guessing Jar With a Prize Bottle

Fill a large clear jar with something seasonally relevant before guests arrive: candy corn, roasted pumpkin seeds, mini marshmallows, or foil-wrapped chocolate turkeys. Every guest writes their name and a guess on a slip of paper and drops it in a second small jar. After dessert, the host counts (or reveals the pre-counted number) and the closest guess wins the prize bottle: a good bottle of wine, a fancy sparkling cider, or a small-batch bourbon, whatever suits the room.

No printing needed. You need the jar, the contents, slips of paper, pens, and the prize bottle. Set the jar somewhere visible when guests arrive so they have the whole evening to obsess over it. Do not reveal the count until after dessert: it gives the end of the night a built-in finale.

Count the contents yourself the night before and write it down. Do not rely on counting them after the meal when you are tired and slightly full. Seal the number in an envelope on the mantle for theatrical effect at the reveal.

11. The Prediction Card With Stakes

Before the meal, each guest fills in a prediction card: who will fall asleep first, what dish will run out first, who will bring up something awkward, and one wildcard they invent themselves. The card goes face-down by their plate. At the end of the evening the host calls time, everyone flips their card over and reads it aloud. Most correct predictions wins a small prize. Anyone whose wildcard prediction came true gets to assign a sip to whoever is most surprised.

Print four cards per sheet, cut and place one at each seat before guests arrive. The fill-in format means every card is personal to that table, that evening. Works for six to sixteen guests. Pens at the table from the start.

The wildcard line is the most important part of the card: it is where the real personality comes through. Leave it genuinely open, no prompt beyond ‘wildcard prediction.’ The funniest and most accurate wildcard of the night is worth calling out separately when you do the reveal.

12. The Non-Alcoholic Version Running Alongside

This is not a separate game: it is a parallel track that the host sets up once and never has to manage again. Before guests arrive, fill a small pitcher or carafe with something good: a spiced apple cider shrub, a pomegranate-ginger sparkler, or a rosemary-pear mocktail. Label it clearly. Every time a drinking game calls for a sip, non-drinkers sip from their glass of that instead. Nobody announces it, nobody makes a toast about it, it just exists.

No printing needed. The only effort is making or buying one interesting non-alcoholic drink that is worth sipping slowly, not juice from a carton. Batch it the night before so the morning of the party has one less task. A labelled carafe in the middle of the table signals ‘this was thought about’ without requiring a conversation.

The version that fails is putting out sparkling water and calling it done. Sparkling water is fine as a supplement but it does not feel like participation. The non-alcoholic option should be as considered as the wine list, because the people drinking it notice immediately whether it was an afterthought.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can thanksgiving drinking games work if some guests are not drinking alcohol?

Yes, and they work better when the host sets up a non-alcoholic option that feels equally considered, not just a glass of water. Every game on this list is structured around the mechanic of sipping, and that sip can be anything in the glass. No game requires knowing what anyone is drinking.

How many games should you actually play at a Friendsgiving?

Three to four games across a four-hour gathering is the practical ceiling. One printable round before or during dinner, one active game after, and one slow-burn game like bingo or the prediction card running in the background all evening. More than that and games start to feel like assignments.

What is the best thanksgiving drinking game for a large group over ten people?

Bingo and the Sip Trivia Round both scale well because every guest participates simultaneously rather than waiting for a turn. The trivia round specifically works for tables up to about twenty people as long as the host reads the answers aloud with enough of a pause between each one.

Do you need to buy anything special to run these games?

Most of these need nothing beyond a printer and what is already on the table. The blind wine tasting needs foil or paper bags. The guessing jar needs a large clear jar and something to fill it with. Everything else is paper, pens, and drinks already present.

How do you keep drinking games from getting out of hand at a dinner party?

Design the stakes in advance: sips rather than shots, and always a non-alcoholic parallel. Games that assign one sip at a time with a clear rule keep the pace controlled. Avoid any mechanic that involves finishing a glass or drinking continuously for more than a second or two.

What are good prizes for thanksgiving drinking games?

A bottle of wine, a small-batch spirit, a fancy candle, or a box of good chocolates all work. Prize value does not need to be high: the competition is the point, not the reward. For the guessing jar, the prize bottle is the game’s centrepiece, so spend a little more there than on other prizes.