Printable Thanksgiving Scattergories – Fun After-dinner Game!

Looking for last minute printable Thanksgiving games that you can play after dinner with your family? If you’re looking for easy entertainment for your holiday guests, try this Thanksgiving Scattergories game!

Let’s face it… When you’re trying to make a 19 course dinner and not overcook the turkey, the last thing that you have time for is planning Thanksgiving games for your guests to play around the table. And if you don’t have some pre-planned entertainment to keep everyone busy after they’ve gorged on turkey and all the pies, then the conversation is bound to turn to politics or some other off-limits topics.

Then the next thing you know, Uncle Tom is involved in a yelling match with Aunt Sue and your perfectly cooked turkey that you slaved over for 5 hours is a distant memory.

But let’s avoid all that holiday hoop-lah with a fun and easy to play Thanksgiving game, shall we?

Instead of leaving the dinner festivities to chance, try this fun printable Thanksgiving Scattergories game! Just print the game cards, pass out some pencils, and see who can fill their cards first! Maybe even throw in some fun adult prizes for the winners to make it even more exciting. Here’s how to play:

What is Scattergories?

If you’ve never played Scattergories before, then allow me to introduce you to your new favorite, low-prep game that’s perfect for adults and older kids. I also have a fun Christmas Scattergories game too!

Scattergories is a popular word game from Hasbro that pits players against each other to see who can come up with the most unique words in a specific category that begin with a certain letter. So for instance, if the category is “a spice or herb used in Thanksgiving dinner” and the letter for that round is “C” then you could write down “coriander”. And then for “a type of pie” you could write down “coconut cream” (and since coconut cream actually has two words that both start with letter C, then you could get double points for that!).

There are typically 10-12 categories in each round, and each round has a specific letter. In the classic Scattergories board game, you roll a 20 sided dice with all of the letters of the alphabet except for Q, U, V, X, Y, and Z. For this printable Thanksgiving Categories game, however, you can draw out a letter card if you don’t already own an official Scattegories dice.

This is a great after Thanksgiving dinner game for adults, because it can definitely be challenging, especially when you have a crazy category and there aren’t a lot of options for a particular letter… You could really need to get creative in your answers.

This fast-paced word game can be played with a large number of players, or you could even divide your players into teams, so it’s a perfect holiday game to play with a big group!

Supplies Needed

To play this fun Thanksgiving game you’ll need a few basic supplies:

• Printable Thanksgiving Scattergories game cards and letter cards – Check out the game in my SHOP here!
• Printer
• Paper
• Enough pencils or pens for every player
• Prizes for the winners!
• Timer – Your cell phone timer works great!
• Laminator (optional) – If you want to use this fun game year after year, then I suggest laminating the Thanksgiving category lists and letter cards.

What’s Included in the Thanksgiving Scattegories Printable Game?

I tried to think of everything when I made this fun printable Thanksgiving game… you’re going to be slaving away in the kitchen after all, so the last thing you need is more holiday stress! Here’s what’s included in the printable:

• 6 sheets of category list game cards – Each sheet has 4 copies of the category list, so it’s great for printing out for a crowd to play! Each category list has 10 different categories for your guests to think of words for, like “a cooking utensil” or “a Fall scent”.
• 1 sheet of blank list cards with space to write down answers for all 6 category lists – This sheet has 2 copies of the blank answer sheets.
• 20 letter cards – Cut these out and stack them in the center of the table to draw out a random letter for each round.
• 1 sheet of instructions – You can print this out and keep it with the game so you remember how to play when Thanksgiving rolls around next year!

All of the above printables are used to play one version of the Thanksgiving Scattegories game, but you can also choose to use the other printable cards to play different versions of the fun word game:

Single Game Card Version

This one page Thanksgiving categories game version (with CORN and PIES letters) is a little bit easier, because you know all of the categories in the list and all 4 of the letters immediately when you get the card. There’s a little bit less pressure to hurry and think on your feet (though it can still be pretty challenging!).

“Thanksgiving Words” for Kids

The blank “Thanksgiving Words” cards are perfect for thinking of any Fall-themed word for each letter of the alphabet… Great for elementary aged kids! For instance, apple for A, bread for B, cornucopia for C, etc.

Grab the Thanksgiving Scattergories Printable HERE!

How to Play Thanksgiving Scattergories

Although this fun adult game is challenging because you’ve got to think fast and come up with different words for each category, the rules are simple. Here’s how to play the printable Thanksgiving Scattergories game:

1. Print the Thanksgiving Scattergories game cards and letter cards. You can print the category list cards and the letters on white card stock to use them year after year, or just print on regular copy paper. Then pass out one category card and one blank list sheet to each player or team. If you’re using the letter cards (instead of a Scattergories letter dice), then shuffle them up and place them in a pile in the center of the table.
2. Roll the letter dice or draw a letter card. Choose which category list card you’ll use first, and then have one player roll the letter dice or draw a letter card out of the pile and say it out loud to the group. Then, set a timer on your smartphone or use a sand timer. Since some of the categories are more difficult, I would suggest going with a 3 or 5 minute timer for each round.
3. For each category listed, write down one word or phrase that starts with the letter. Try to think of a word for each of the 10 categories on the list before the timer runs out! Skip the ones that you can’t think of and come back to those later if you have time.
4. Tally up the scores to see who won! Go around the circle and have everyone read off their answers for one category at a time. Each player gets one point for every unique answer in a particular category. So if two players write down the same answer for “a Thanksgiving side dish”, then neither player gets a point for that answer.

Other Rules for Scattergories

Now that you know the basics of how to play this popular game, here are some of the other rules that you need to know:

• You can’t use the same word twice in a single round. So you can’t write down “pumpkin pie” as the answer for both of the categories “type of pie” and “a Fall scent”, if those categories are in the same round or on the same category list card.
• You can use multi-word answers, as long as the first word starts with the correct letter. So for the category “Thanksgiving movie” and the letter “H”, you can write “Home Alone” because the very first word starts with H.
• The words a, an, and the don’t count as the first word. So you could write down “The Night Before Christmas” for a Christmas book that starts with letter N.
• Before playing, decide if players will get 2 points for alliterations. An alliteration is when two words that are right next to each other start with the same letter, like “Rocky Road” or “Green grapes”.

Scattergories Categories for Thanksgiving and Fall

One of the hardest parts of making a fun DIY game for the holidays is coming up with categories to use for each round. So to make things easy on you, this printable Fall Scattergories game includes category cards to use! Here are some of the categories that are included on the printable Thanksgiving game cards:

• a type of pie
• most popular side dish
• a Thanksgiving must-have
• something you find on the dinner table
• ingredients for a turkey
• a food you’re grateful for
• something that would be good with pumpkin spice flavoring
• something you’ll find in the fridge right now
• something orange
• something brown
• something you’ll find at the kids’ table
• a non-pie Thanksgiving dessert
• something you’ll find in a parade
• something you’re grateful for
• thing you see in Fall
• name of a family member
• something pumpkin spice flavored
• a kitchen utensil
• a Fall drink

That’s just a sample of some of the Thanksgiving Scattergories categories in this printable game, and there are 6 separate list cards pre-filled with 10 different categories… so that’s a total of 60 different words for your guests to come up with!

Other Thanksgiving Printables Your Family Will Love

If you loved this fun Thanksgiving idea, then check out some of my other Fall and Thanksgiving printables, too:

Thanksgiving Conversation Starters – Keep the dinner table talk fun and light with these free printable Thanksgiving conversation starters! No politics-related conversations in sight!

Thanksgiving Parade BINGO Game – One of my family’s favorite Thanksgiving traditions is watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade… So I created this fun printable Thanksgiving Parade BINGO Game to go with it!

I hope that your family LOVES playing these fun printable Thanksgiving games! Do you have any fun after-dinner activities for the adults to do at your Thanksgiving party every year? If so, leave me a comment down below and tell me about it!

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