20 Fun Things You Can Do with Family on Thanksgiving

Pick an enjoyable destination and have the entire family moving on such a special day. You could also join a Thanksgiving road race or road walk.

Just get outside with the gang and do something that involves running around and taking in some nice fresh air.

Get out those games you have in the closet since last Christmas and haven’t played yet. Scrabble, Life, Yahtzee, Cranium, Trivial Pursuit, Trouble, Chutes & Ladders, whatever! Take them out and have the entire family having fun.

This doesn’t take much. Make your own rules as you go and just have fun!

Get out the instruments or put on a holiday radio station. You can sing along or start a contest. You can really have fun with this.

Share stories. You can pick a theme such as:

• The greatest day of my life.
• The best thing that happened in my life this year
• My favorite memory from childhood
• The funniest thing that ever happened to me

Have someone scribe the stories or videotape the event.

At dinner have everyone share what they are thankful for before eating dinner.

Be silly and dance away. Make up your own rules to make the event a lot more fun.

There’s usually one grownup at family gatherings who likes to get the kids doing activities. If you’re that person, consider having the kids perform for the whole family after dinner. While everyone is watching football, you could throw it together. Of course, adults can join the show, too!

Gather round as a family and have each person share what they love about the family.

Have the family all in one room and have each person tell why he or she admires the next person. And then, that person will do the same thing and so on. You can use lines such as “I admire ___________ because…”

Create a simple treasure map and prepare some prizes. There can be one prize or multiple prizes, like an egg-hunt. You can use chocolates, a packet of coins or a gift certificate wrapped up in a box.

Play the humming game where each teams or individuals have to name the tune.

Here is a link to a family game with very few rules. You get to make up the rules. The idea is to spark conversations, have fun, and get to know each other better.

Everyone in the family can tell a crazy story and the rest has to guess if it is true or not. The story doesn’t have to be something that they actually experienced.

Have everyone imprint their hands on a big sheet of paper with their name underneath. You can have it framed or take a picture of it to share with everyone.

This year, create a banner that you can hang in your living room. Make sure that it has a picture of the whole family. Do the same thing next year and your banners can serve as an heirloom for future generations.

Games aren’t just for kids. So, link up both kids and grownups and start a three-legged race. You could also try a sack race or create an obstacle course race, too. Prepare some prizes to make the game a lot more fun and exciting.

There are so many great things about keeping a journal and this Thanksgiving gives you more reason to try it out. So, grab a blank notebook and write down what everyone in the family is thankful for this year. Keep creating Thanksgiving journals which you can turn into treasured family books you can pass on to the next generation.

Tell jokes. You can turn it into a game to see if you can get someone to laugh. You can do it by yourself or ask a friend to join you.

Happy Thanksgiving all! Enjoy!

Please share your favorite Thanksgiving traditions and family fun activities in the comments! We’d love to hear your ideas!

See Also: 10 Ways to Make Thanksgiving Super Fun

Originally written for Dumb Little Man by K. Stone. She is the author of Life Learning Today, a blog about daily life improvements. Photo by Cameron Nordholm