Thanksgiving is the one day of the year when a whole country sits down to the same meal. Families travel across the continent for it, kitchens run from early morning, and by the evening half the house is asleep on the sofa. At its heart it is simple: a harvest dinner and a moment to say what you are grateful for.
What Is Thanksgiving?
Thanksgiving is a national holiday in the United States and Canada. In the US it falls on the fourth Thursday of November, which is 26 November in 2026. Canada celebrates on the second Monday of October, 12 October in 2026, closer to its own, earlier harvest.
The day is built around a large family meal, but it is also about gratitude: many families go around the table and ask everyone to name one thing they are thankful for this year.
Where Thanksgiving Comes From
The story most Americans learn at school goes back to 1621, when the English settlers of Plymouth Colony, known as the Pilgrims, held a harvest feast with the Wampanoag people that lasted three days. Harvest thanksgivings were already an old custom in Europe and among Native peoples, but that meal became the symbol of the holiday.
For a long time each state set its own date. In 1863, in the middle of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of thanksgiving, and in 1941 Congress fixed it on the fourth Thursday of November. Canada set its date on the second Monday of October in 1957.
The holiday is not a happy one for everyone. For many Native Americans it recalls the loss of land and lives that followed the early colonies, and since 1970 some gather in Plymouth on the same day for a National Day of Mourning.
How Thanksgiving Is Celebrated
- The meal. Roast turkey with stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, corn and dinner rolls, followed by pumpkin pie and pecan pie. Leftover turkey sandwiches are a tradition of their own the next day.
- The parade. The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade has filled the streets of New York with giant balloons every year since 1924, and millions watch it on television.
- Football. American football is part of the day: the Detroit Lions and the Dallas Cowboys play at home every Thanksgiving.
- The wishbone. Two people pull the turkey's wishbone, and whoever gets the bigger piece makes a wish.
- The turkey pardon. Every year since 1989 the US president has "pardoned" a turkey, which lives out its life on a farm.
- Friendsgiving. Friends who cannot travel home share their own potluck dinner, often a day or two before the real one.
- Black Friday. The day after Thanksgiving opens the Christmas shopping season.
Thanksgiving Around the World
Other countries give thanks for the harvest too, just not always in November. Liberia celebrates Thanksgiving on the first Thursday of November. In Germany, churches decorate their altars with fruit and bread for Erntedankfest in early October. Japan's Labour Thanksgiving Day on 23 November grew out of an ancient rice harvest ritual. Korea's Chuseok and the Jewish festival of Sukkot are autumn harvest holidays built around family and food. In British schools and churches, the harvest festival collects food for people in need.
Games That Keep the Day Fun
Thanksgiving has a lot of waiting in it: waiting for the turkey, waiting for the pie, waiting for everyone to wake up. Games fill that time and bring the kids' table and the grown-ups together.
- Backyard football before dinner, for anyone who can still run.
- Board games and card games after dinner.
- A thankful jar. Everyone writes what they are grateful for on a slip of paper, and the slips are read out over dessert.
- Thanksgiving bingo. Bingo suits the day because it works for every age at once. Grandparents know it, children can play with a little help, and nobody needs to learn any rules.
Three kinds of bingo work especially well:
- Thanksgiving word bingo. Every square holds a word from the day, and the caller reads them out one by one.
- Gratitude bingo. The squares are prompts such as "someone who helped you this year" or "a food you are thankful for". When a square is called, a player shares their answer before marking it.
- Dinner prediction bingo. Each guest fills in an empty card with things they expect to happen: "Grandpa falls asleep on the sofa", "someone asks about the Wi-Fi password", "the dog gets a piece of turkey". The first to get five in a row wins.
Teachers use the same idea in English lessons around the world. Thanksgiving vocabulary bingo is a classic, especially when the teacher reads a definition and the class has to find the word.
A Thanksgiving Word List to Start From
Turkey, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, dinner rolls, apple cider, harvest, autumn leaves, family, gratitude, grace, parade, football, wishbone, leftovers, nap on the couch, pie for breakfast, Friendsgiving, Black Friday.
That is 24 words, exactly enough for a 5×5 card with a free space in the middle. You can print word bingo cards with this list, where every card is shuffled differently, or hand out blank bingo cards for the prediction game. The "United States" background in the generator fits the day, and one card per page leaves room for small children to write.