75 Thanksgiving Trivia Questions and Answers (2026) for Work and Family

Here are 75 Thanksgiving trivia questions and answers for 2026, in eight rounds: the first Thanksgiving, holiday history, food and turkey facts, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, football and pop culture, unusual traditions, Thanksgiving around the world, and a final round of true-or-false and multiple-choice questions. Every answer sits under its question, so you can play at the dinner table, an office potluck or a Zoom call. Thanksgiving falls on Thursday, November 26, 2026, the same year as the 100th Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Want the questions without the answers showing? Get the printable Thanksgiving trivia pack, with a separate answer key, by email.

How to use these questions

• Dinner-table game (15 minutes): read rounds 1 and 3 between courses.
• Office trivia (about 60 minutes): teams of 4–6, six rounds, one point per answer.
• Kids and mixed ages: rounds 1, 3 and 4.
• Tiebreakers: round 8 is all true-or-false and multiple choice, so every team can answer fast.

Jump to a round

• Round 1: The first Thanksgiving (8 questions)
• Round 2: Thanksgiving history (10 questions)
• Round 3: Turkey and Thanksgiving food trivia (13 questions)
• Round 4: Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade trivia (9 questions)
• Round 5: Football and pop culture (10 questions)
• Round 6: Unusual Thanksgiving traditions (9 questions)
• Round 7: Thanksgiving around the world (9 questions)
• Round 8: True or false and multiple choice (7 questions)

Round 1: The first Thanksgiving

What actually happened at Plymouth in the autumn of 1621.

1. In what year was the harvest feast now called the first Thanksgiving?
   Answer: 1621. The first Thanksgiving feast was a three-day harvest celebration at Plymouth Colony.

2. Which ship brought the Pilgrims to America in 1620?
   Answer: The Mayflower, with 102 passengers. About half died in the first winter, so only around 50 Pilgrims were left for the first Thanksgiving celebration.

3. Who attended the 1621 feast?
   Answer: About 50 English colonists and roughly 90 Wampanoag men led by Massasoit. The Wampanoag are the Native American tribe whose land the Pilgrims had settled on.

4. How long did the first Thanksgiving last?
   Answer: Three days.

5. Where was it held?
   Answer: Plymouth Colony, in present-day Massachusetts.

6. What were the main dishes at the first Thanksgiving?
   Answer: Venison and wild fowl, with fish, corn and squash.

7. Which foods were almost certainly not on the 1621 menu?
   Answer: Pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce.

8. Did the Pilgrims call their feast "Thanksgiving"?
   Answer: No. To them a day of thanksgiving was a religious day of prayer, not a feast.

Round 2: Thanksgiving history

Presidents, proclamations and the woman who lobbied for 17 years.

9. Which president issued the first national Thanksgiving proclamation, in 1789?
   Answer: George Washington. He declared Thursday, November 26, 1789, a day of public thanksgiving.

10. Which president made Thanksgiving an annual national holiday, in 1863?
    Answer: Abraham Lincoln, during the Civil War. In 1863 he declared Thanksgiving a national holiday on the last Thursday of November.

11. Which magazine editor campaigned for 17 years for a national Thanksgiving?
    Answer: Sarah Josepha Hale, who also wrote "Mary Had a Little Lamb."

12. In what year did Congress fix Thanksgiving as the fourth Thursday of November?
    Answer: 1941.

13. What was "Franksgiving"?
    Answer: Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1939 move of Thanksgiving a week earlier to lengthen the holiday shopping season.

14. Which state was the first to adopt Thanksgiving as an annual holiday, in 1817?
    Answer: New York.

15. When did the presidential turkey pardon become an official annual ceremony?
    Answer: 1989, under George H. W. Bush.

16. Which president spared a Thanksgiving turkey in 1963, saying "We'll just let this one grow"?
    Answer: John F. Kennedy.

17. Which founding father refused to declare a national Thanksgiving while president?
    Answer: Thomas Jefferson. He believed a presidential day of prayer mixed church and state.

18. True or false: Benjamin Franklin formally proposed the turkey as the national bird.
    Answer: False. He praised the turkey over the bald eagle in a letter to his daughter, but never proposed it as the national bird.

Round 3: Turkey and Thanksgiving food trivia

The Thanksgiving dinner round, from the turkey to the leftovers.

19. About how many turkeys do Americans eat on Thanksgiving?
    Answer: Around 46 million.

20. Which U.S. state raises the most turkeys?
    Answer: Minnesota.

21. Which company created green bean casserole in 1955?
    Answer: Campbell Soup Company.

22. Which invention came from a surplus of 260 tons of leftover Thanksgiving turkey in 1953?
    Answer: The Swanson TV dinner, which turned leftover turkey into a frozen tray meal.

23. How much did the world's largest pumpkin pie weigh?
    Answer: 3,699 pounds, baked in New Bremen, Ohio, in 2010.

24. What is the tradition with the turkey's wishbone?
    Answer: Two people pull it apart, and whoever gets the bigger piece gets their wish (or good luck).

25. Can wild turkeys fly?
    Answer: Yes. Wild turkeys can fly in short bursts at up to about 55 mph. Farm-raised turkeys are too heavy.

26. What is a male turkey called, and what is a female called?
    Answer: A tom (or gobbler), and a hen.

27. What sound does only a male turkey make?
    Answer: The gobble. Female turkeys don't gobble; they cluck, purr and yelp.

28. Which U.S. state grows the most cranberries?
    Answer: Wisconsin. A pound of fresh cranberries holds roughly 440 berries.

29. Which U.S. state grows the most sweet potatoes?
    Answer: North Carolina.

30. Which pie do Americans most often name as their favorite Thanksgiving dessert?
    Answer: Pumpkin pie.

31. Which day is the busiest of the year for plumbers?
    Answer: The day after Thanksgiving, sometimes called "Brown Friday."

Round 4: Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade trivia

2026 is the 100th parade. Here is how it started.

32. In what year was the first Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade?
    Answer: 1924.

33. What did the first parade feature instead of giant balloons?
    Answer: Live animals borrowed from the Central Park Zoo, plus floats and bands.

34. Which character was the first giant balloon, in 1927?
    Answer: Felix the Cat.

35. Why is the 2026 parade the 100th, not the 103rd?
    Answer: The parade was canceled from 1942 to 1944 during World War II.

36. Which character has appeared as a parade balloon more times than any other?
    Answer: Snoopy.

37. Who was the first video game character to get a parade balloon, in 1993?
    Answer: Sonic the Hedgehog.

38. About how long is today's parade route?
    Answer: About 2.5 miles, from the Upper West Side to Macy's Herald Square. It starts at 8:30 a.m. on Thanksgiving morning.

39. In what year was the parade first broadcast on national television?
    Answer: 1948.

40. Which city holds the oldest Thanksgiving Day parade in the U.S.?
    Answer: Philadelphia. Its parade, started by Gimbels department store in 1920, is the oldest Thanksgiving parade in the country.

Round 5: Football and pop culture

Thanksgiving on TV, from the Lions to the Peanuts gang.

41. In what year were the first NFL games played on Thanksgiving?
    Answer: 1920, the league's first season.

42. Which NFL team has hosted a Thanksgiving game almost every year since 1934?
    Answer: The Detroit Lions.

43. Which other team has hosted a Thanksgiving game every year since 1978?
    Answer: The Dallas Cowboys.

44. When was the first college football game played on Thanksgiving?
    Answer: 1876, between Princeton and Yale.

45. In what year did A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving first air?
    Answer: 1973. Snoopy and Woodstock serve a Thanksgiving dinner of toast, popcorn, pretzels and jelly beans.

46. Which Friends episode is a flashback to every character's worst Thanksgiving?
    Answer: "The One with All the Thanksgivings."

47. In Friends, which character gets a turkey stuck on their head?
    Answer: Monica.

48. Which 2013 animated movie features two turkeys traveling back in time to take turkey off the menu?
    Answer: Free Birds.

49. Which 1987 comedy stars Steve Martin and John Candy trying to get home for Thanksgiving?
    Answer: Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

50. Which 18-minute Arlo Guthrie song is a Thanksgiving radio tradition?
    Answer: "Alice's Restaurant."

Round 6: Unusual Thanksgiving traditions

Holiday traditions from Thanksgiving weekend: turkey trots, a pet raccoon and a town that postponed the holiday.

51. Which Connecticut town postponed Thanksgiving in 1705 because it had no molasses for pumpkin pies?
    Answer: Colchester.

52. Which pet was President Calvin Coolidge sent to eat for Thanksgiving, but kept instead?
    Answer: A raccoon, which he named Rebecca.

53. What is "Blackout Wednesday"?
    Answer: The night before Thanksgiving, one of the busiest bar nights of the year.

54. Which city runs the oldest continuously held footrace in North America, a Thanksgiving turkey trot?
    Answer: Buffalo, New York, since 1896.

55. Where does the president usually hold the turkey pardon?
    Answer: At the White House, often in the Rose Garden.

56. What is the horn-shaped basket overflowing with fruit and vegetables that symbolizes the Thanksgiving harvest?
    Answer: A cornucopia, or "horn of plenty."

57. What is "Friendsgiving"?
    Answer: A Thanksgiving meal shared with friends instead of family, usually on a different day.

58. Which Saturday Night Live comedian first performed "The Thanksgiving Song" in 1992?
    Answer: Adam Sandler.

59. Which Australian territory celebrates Thanksgiving, a tradition brought by American whalers?
    Answer: Norfolk Island.

Round 7: Thanksgiving around the world

Harvest festivals and days of thanks from Canada to Korea.

60. When is Canadian Thanksgiving, and what date is it in 2026?
    Answer: Canadian Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday in October. In 2026 it is October 12.

61. What is the Korean harvest festival where families honor their ancestors and share food?
    Answer: Chuseok.

62. What is the German harvest festival of thanks called?
    Answer: Erntedankfest.

63. Which West African country celebrates the harvest festival Homowo?
    Answer: Ghana.

64. Which Indian harvest festival is celebrated in January, especially in Tamil Nadu?
    Answer: Pongal.

65. Which Caribbean country celebrates Thanksgiving on October 25?
    Answer: Grenada.

66. In Japan, what holiday on November 23 thanks workers?
    Answer: Labor Thanksgiving Day (Kinrō Kansha no Hi).

67. Which African country, founded by freed American slaves, celebrates Thanksgiving in November?
    Answer: Liberia.

68. Which harvest festival in China and Vietnam is celebrated with mooncakes?
    Answer: The Mid-Autumn Festival.

Round 8: True or false and multiple choice

Fast tiebreakers. Read the options out loud.

69. Multiple choice: In what year did the first Thanksgiving take place? (a) 1620 (b) 1621 (c) 1622 (d) 1623
    Answer: (b) 1621.

70. Multiple choice: How long did the first Thanksgiving last? (a) 1 day (b) 2 days (c) 3 days (d) a week
    Answer: (c) 3 days.

71. Multiple choice: What was the main meat at the first Thanksgiving? (a) Turkey (b) Venison (c) Ham (d) Lobster
    Answer: (b) Venison.

72. True or false: Thanksgiving has always been on the fourth Thursday of November.
    Answer: False. Lincoln set it as the last Thursday; Congress fixed the fourth Thursday in 1941.

73. True or false: Canada celebrates Thanksgiving before the United States.
    Answer: True. Canadian Thanksgiving is in October.

74. True or false: The Macy's parade has never been canceled.
    Answer: False. It was canceled from 1942 to 1944.

75. True or false: Farm-raised turkeys can fly.
    Answer: False. Wild turkeys can, but farm-raised turkeys are too heavy.

How to run a Thanksgiving trivia game

A Thanksgiving trivia game takes about an hour and works for families, holiday guests and teams alike. It is an easy way to fill the gap between the parade and Thanksgiving dinner, or to open a work party before the holiday season gets busy.

1. Split into teams of 4–6. At a family dinner, kids versus adults works well.
2. Pick five or six rounds. Rounds 1, 3, 4, 5 and 8 are a balanced mix.
3. Read each question twice and allow 30 seconds before taking answers.
4. Keep score on a whiteboard or a napkin. One point per answer.
5. Give the winners first pick of the pie.

Hosting a work Thanksgiving? Trivia is a good opener before a hands-on activity. Our team building workshops in NYC and virtual workshops take 90 minutes, and everyone leaves with something they made. In New York for the long weekend? See what to do in NYC on Thanksgiving weekend.

Frequently asked questions

What are good Thanksgiving trivia questions for work?

Rounds 3, 4 and 5 (food, the Macy's parade, football and pop culture) are the most fun at work and avoid anything sensitive. Add round 8 as a fast tiebreaker.

What are easy Thanksgiving trivia questions for kids?

Round 1 (the first Thanksgiving), round 3 (turkey and food facts) and round 4 (the parade) work well for ages 7 and up.

How many questions should a Thanksgiving trivia game have?

About 40–50 questions for an hour-long game, or 15–20 for a quick game between courses.

When is Thanksgiving in 2026?

Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November, which is Thursday, November 26, 2026. Canadian Thanksgiving is Monday, October 12, 2026.

Is the 2026 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade the 100th?

Yes. The parade began in 1924 and was canceled from 1942 to 1944, so 2026 is the 100th edition.

Is there a printable Thanksgiving trivia PDF?

Yes. Enter your email in the form on this page and we will send the printable pack with a separate answer key.

More holiday trivia: Halloween trivia questions, Christmas trivia questions and pop culture trivia. Planning the year-end party? Read our holiday party alternatives.