Virtual Thanksgiving Party Ideas: 10 Free Thanksgiving Games Online

A virtual Thanksgiving party works best when everyone can join in without fuss. Thanksgiving falls on Thursday 26 November 2026, and not every guest will be around the same table: some will be in the next room, some in another time zone and some on a video call propped against the gravy boat. These ten Thanksgiving games online work in all three set-ups, because everyone joins on their own phone.

You get a live trivia round, three gratitude activities, a few quick party games and the low-tech classics: scavenger hunt, charades and a homemade cornucopia. Most need under ten minutes of prep. The rest need nothing but a screen and a list.

Updated October 2026. Quiz answers checked against the National Archives and the other sources listed under the trivia round.

Thanksgiving games online at a glance

How to host a virtual Thanksgiving party: in person, remote or hybrid

The AhaSlides games work the same wherever people sit. The host shares a screen, in the room or over Zoom, Teams or Google Meet, and every guest joins on a phone with a code, so remote and in-person players have equal footing. The games that need no software, such as charades and the scavenger hunt, are easy to run on camera.

Pick one calm, one loud and one silly. A good order is a gratitude activity first, trivia in the middle and a game with movement while the pie is served. For a generic remote list, our post on free virtual party ideas has more, and icebreaker games help when guests have not met.

1. Thanksgiving trivia

A short quiz is the easiest way to get everyone playing, from grandparents to the person who only came for the pie. We wrote a five-question round for this post with a mix of history, parades and holiday dates; the questions are below. To host it live, start from the free Thanksgiving Get-Together template, which adds Thanksgiving polls, a gratitude word cloud and a spinner wheel, then add the five questions as quiz slides.

How to play it:

1. Click Use this template and copy the deck into your free AhaSlides account.
2. Add the five questions below as Pick Answer and True or False slides, with a leaderboard after them.
3. Present it and share the join code. Guests enter the code on their phones.
4. Players answer on their phones. Faster correct answers score more points, and the leaderboard slide shows who is ahead.

The Free plan allows up to 5 quiz questions and 3 poll questions per presentation, with up to 50 participants. The five trivia questions (four Pick Answer and one True or False) are exactly the quiz limit, so adding more needs a paid plan. The template's polls count towards the poll limit, so check the plan label on each slide in the editor before the party. Our guide on how to make a quiz walks through writing your own, and the holiday trivia questions post has more rounds to borrow.

Here are the five questions, with a reason for each answer, so you can read them out without a deck too.

Sources: National Archives, Congress Establishes Thanksgiving, Pilgrim Hall Museum, The First Thanksgiving, History.com, The history of Thanksgiving, Library of Congress, Macy's Thanksgiving Parade and Canada Revenue Agency, Public holidays.

For a class: swap in a Fill in the Blanks slide with a sentence such as “We sat down to eat turkey with ___ sauce” to practise Thanksgiving vocabulary.

2. Give Thanks word cloud

We can always use more gratitude, and a word cloud delivers it in two minutes. Ask who your guests are most thankful for and watch the names grow. For work teams it doubles as a recognition moment for the colleagues who went the extra mile.

How to run it:

1. Add a word cloud slide titled “Who are you most thankful for?”.
2. Everyone submits one or more names from their phone.
3. The names mentioned most grow largest in the middle. Screenshot the result as a keepsake.

3. Who's Thankful? (Draw Answer)

This is Pictionary with a twist. Each guest sketches something they are thankful for on their phone, and the rest of the group guesses who drew what. Nobody needs a whiteboard tool, because the drawing happens inside the same session.

How to run it:

1. Add a Draw Answer slide: “Draw something you are thankful for”. Every guest sketches on their phone.
2. Show the wall of drawings and ask: who drew this, and what are they thankful for?
3. Follow it with a Poll or Pick Answer slide listing the guests' names, so people can vote on who drew the pumpkin. Give a point for each correct guess if you want a winner.

4. Plate or cornucopia photo share

Remote guests miss the table, so bring the table to them. A Photo Share slide asks everyone to send a picture of their plate, their cornucopia or their dessert from their phone, and the photos appear together on the big screen as a gratitude wall. Afterwards you can download them all from the report for a keepsake album.

Vote for the best plate with a quick poll, or just enjoy it. It works for families, friends and teams alike.

5. Who says grace? (Duck Race)

Every guest who joins becomes a duck, and the winner of the race gets the honour. It takes under a minute and settles the old argument over who says grace, carves the turkey or does the washing up. Add a Duck Race slide, let everyone join, then press start.

6. Myth or fact (True or False)

Pose a claim, give the room twenty seconds and reveal the answer. A True or False slide is the quickest way to get a hybrid room involved, because only two buttons are needed. Good claims for Thanksgiving:

• Thanksgiving was always on the fourth Thursday of November. (False. From 1863 to 1938 it was the last Thursday, and the fourth Thursday became law in 1941.)
• Canada celebrates Thanksgiving in October. (True.)
• Lincoln's 1863 proclamation made it a yearly holiday. (True.)

7. Scavenger hunt

A staple of North American Thanksgivings, and one of the easiest games to move online. It needs only a list and some eagle-eyed guests.

1. Show the list to your guests. You can download ours.
2. When you say “Go”, everyone searches their home or the venue for the items.
3. Close approximations count, such as a belt tied around a baseball cap in place of a pilgrim hat.
4. The first person back with every item wins.

Tip: keep cameras on if you are remote, because the scramble is half the fun.

8. Charades

Charades is an old parlour game that works equally well in a living room and on a video call. Give each guest three to five words from our downloadable list to act out.

Record how long it takes each person to get a correct guess for every word. The fastest cumulative time wins. Have everyone type their time into the chat, or keep a tally on paper if you are in the same room.

9. PowerPoint party

Guests make a short, funny presentation about anything Thanksgiving-related and present it in turn, in the room or over video. PowerPoint nights are a fixture of office and family parties.

1. Ask each guest to prepare a short deck in AhaSlides, PowerPoint or Google Slides.
2. Set a limit of 5 to 10 minutes or 8 to 12 slides.
3. On the day, each person presents in turn.
4. After each talk, run a quick Poll or Ranking slide so the audience can vote on funniest, most creative and best designed.
5. Tally the votes and award a prize in each category.

10. Homemade cornucopia

The cornucopia is the traditional centrepiece of the Thanksgiving table, so make a few. This guide from Daily DIY Life shows how to build easy cornucopias from ice cream cones and orange sweets, and works for kids and adults.

1. Ask guests to pick up ice cream cones and Thanksgiving-coloured sweets beforehand. Budget about $2 each as a rough estimate; prices vary by shop.
2. On the day, everyone follows the instructions together, laptops in the kitchen.
3. Show off your cornucopias on camera or in the room and vote for the most creative one.

It works well as a warm-up while everyone is still arriving.

Running these on AhaSlides

• Free plan: up to 50 participants, 5 quiz questions and 3 poll questions per presentation, and unlimited presentations. The five-question trivia round above matches the quiz limit. Longer quizzes need a paid plan; see pricing.
• No downloads: guests join on their phones with a code.
• Works for hybrid: in-person and remote guests use the same session and see the same screen.
• Ready to play: use the template above or build your own with our guide on how to make a quiz.

Sign up free and have your first Thanksgiving game ready in minutes. For more office ideas, browse our office games post.

More seasonal party ideas

Hosting more than one gathering this autumn? Our fall festival games cover the weeks before Thanksgiving, and the free virtual Christmas party ideas take you into December.

Frequently asked questions

How do I host a virtual Thanksgiving party?

Pick a video platform, share your screen and choose three activities: one calm (a gratitude word cloud), one competitive (trivia) and one silly (Duck Race or charades). Guests join the AhaSlides games on their phones with a code, so nobody needs to install anything.

What are good Thanksgiving games to play online?

Trivia, a word cloud, Draw Answer, a plate photo share and True or False all work well over video, because guests answer on their phones. Charades and the scavenger hunt work with no extra software.

What are good Thanksgiving games for work?

A gratitude word cloud, a short trivia round and a plate photo share are easy to fit into a team meeting or a lunch. They keep it light and include remote colleagues. See our office games for more.

Can I run these in a hybrid room?

Yes. In-person and remote guests join the same AhaSlides session on their phones, so everyone sees the same questions and results.

Are these games free?

The scavenger hunt, charades and cornucopia need nothing but the downloads. On AhaSlides' Free plan you can host up to 50 participants with up to 5 quiz questions and 3 poll questions per presentation. Longer quizzes need a paid plan, and the pricing page lists the details for everything else.

Where can I find more trivia questions?

Try our holiday trivia questions or build your own quiz in minutes with our guide on how to make a quiz.