Interested in Virtual Team Building Events?
11 mins 
Thanksgiving is one of the most loved American holidays. It brings families together, brightens our spirits, and spreads a feeling of gratitude for all the great things we have in our lives. Whether you celebrate with a traditional meal of turkey, gravy, and all the trimmings or celebrate with a family take-out and movie night, we all deserve a relaxing and carefree holiday! But it can be tricky to think of virtual thanksgiving ideas and how to celebrate, especially when working remotely.
Celebrating thanksgiving while working remotely can be tricky, but we have ideas that will ensure you and your team can celebrate together. Choose from 19 ideas to celebrate Thanksgiving with your co-workers virtually and spread the holiday cheer!
1 What is virtual Thanksgiving?
Virtual Thanksgiving is a way for you to celebrate with your work colleagues and teammates online. This could be enjoying a meal virtually together, playing online games, or enjoying a few cocktails together on Zoom.
Here's a short video on Virtual Thanksgiving Ideas for 2023 to celebrate with your colleagues:
2 20 Virtual Thanksgiving Ideas for 2023
2.1 Virtual Paint and Prosecco
Virtual paint and prosecco is an excellent addition to your list of thanksgiving virtual activities with which your co-workers can bond virtually. The packages can be mailed straight to the doors of your employees so that you can all join in the fun of painting virtually and catch up over a glass of bubbly.
2.2 Thanksgiving Bingo
Have a fun night of laughs with your co-worker by hosting a virtual Thanksgiving bingo night. This crowd-pleasing Thanksgiving idea is a great way to get creative and spend quality time together. You can create bingo cards easily online or download a premade bingo card. Keep the squares themed around thanksgiving, and encourage your teams to share anecdotes when ticking off each square. This makes for a great simple but effective addition to thanksgiving team building activities.
2.3 Thanksgiving Award Ceremony
Host a Thanksgiving awards ceremony with your colleagues. Thanksgiving ideas are great when they show your appreciation for those around you. Choose categories that will show that you are grateful to your employees, such as; hardest worker, funniest college, most helpful, always up for a laugh, most supportive, etc.
2.4 Virtual Thanksgiving Scavenger Hunt
If you’re wondering, “what games do people play on Thanksgiving?”, then add scavenger hunts to the top of your virtual thanksgiving games list. Keep your team entertained by organizing a virtual scavenger hunt for them all to participate in. Make a list of common household items that they can gather. This can be played in teams or groups; whoever manages to find all the objects first wins!
You can use items related to thanksgiving, such as a can of cranberry sauce, an item you are grateful for, a football, a red item, or any fall decorations.
2.5 Thanksgiving Family Feud
One of the most entertaining Thanksgiving ideas is hosting a thanksgiving-themed family feud night. This is a perfect activity for a virtual get-together and makes for an interesting addition to thanksgiving themed team building activities. Two teams play against each other to guess the most popular answer to questions based on thanksgiving, given to a random selection of 100 people. It can be hard to organize an activity like this on your own, so try out a Thanksgiving family feud template; you can easily buy one on Etsy.
2.6 Thanksgiving Trivia
Who doesn’t love a trivia night? This fun activity can be enjoyed virtually with your co-workers. Set up a Thanksgiving-themed trivia quiz list, and email it out to your colleagues before your meeting. You can all play together or split into teams who can confer in breakout rooms before the final scoring. Theme your trivia questions around football history, recipes, Thanksgiving history, or parades! Add in a few funny questions to get the team laughing with these virtual Thanksgiving games.
2.7 Thanksgiving Pictionary
Get ready for laughs with one of the best virtual Thanksgiving ideas! Gather your team virtually for a fun-filled night of Pictionary. Divide your colleagues into teams, and you can act as the host and assign Thanksgiving-related keywords to the person who will be drawing. Add in a few cocktails for an extra laugh or two. Keep any funny drawings as a screenshot to cherish the memories.
2.8 Virtual Thanksgiving Dinner
Thanksgiving is one of the most food-based significant holidays. Host a remote dinner with your colleagues to share the holiday cheer. To do this, invite your teammates to the virtual event and provide a food budget. The meal doesn’t need to be a traditional meal, it can be a take-out pizza, pasta, or whatever easy meal your co-workers can easily make for themselves with the budget. You can all enjoy your meal together, catch up, and share what you are grateful for this thanksgiving. This is a real bonding exercise for the team, bringing them closer. It doesn't get better than this in terms of thanksgiving team building activities.
2.9 Online Thanksgiving Time Capsule
A time capsule is an incredible way to create memories together and is one of the most creative Thanksgiving virtual activities. Your team can create a gratitude message, text document, or photograph and ask them to bring this to the meeting. You can collect all the messages and photos, save them, and then you can get together again next year and reminisce on your collected memories. This can become a tradition for your team, saving memories of gratitude each year and reminiscing and remembering the next year.
2.10 Hand Turkeys
Remote working can be challenging and often lonely. Add child-like joy to your employee’s day by asking them to join you in creating hand turkeys this Thanksgiving. Mail out craft supplies to your employees, get together over a video call, and create your hand turkeys in this fun feature on Thanksgiving-themed team-building activities. You’ll need colorful paper, scissors, glitter, feathers, and any extra decorations you desire! Hand out a prize such as a restaurant or coffee voucher to the employee that creates the best hand turkey.
2.11 Thanksgiving Pie Cook Along
Is there a better way to celebrate Thanksgiving than having a pumpkin or pecan pie? Grab a tasty-looking Thanksgiving pie recipe and send out the ingredients list before you get together with your co-workers to celebrate virtually. For one of the best Thanksgiving ideas, cook along together via video call. You could give the recipe a go or hire a professional Chef to cook with you. This is a great way to bond with your employees and build positive relationships. So, if you are looking for virtual thanksgiving ideas, this is one you should check out.
2.12 Virtual Care Package
Send your employees a care package this Thanksgiving to show them that you are thinking of them—this is an excellent way to show your appreciation and encourage them to participate in self-care and relaxation. Fill your care packages with mini pecan pies, spiced candles, Thanksgiving decorations, and plenty of snacks. This will give your employees a sense of team spirit and will boost their moods when celebrating together virtually. If your aim is to show appreciation and you have been looking for virtual thanksgiving ideas to do the same, try this one out.
2.13 Virtual Thanksgiving Happy Hour
Who says happy hour is only for office workers? Get together with your colleagues over Zoom and have a happy hour together this thanksgiving! Try out a cocktail recipe together, host a prosecco night, or invite everyone to catch up over their drink of choice. You can throw in some virtual Thanksgiving games such as Thanksgiving bingo or a Thanksgiving scavenger hunt to add more fun!
2.14 Thanksgiving Virtual Escape Room
One of the hottest trends right now is virtual escape rooms. These escape rooms are specially designed for remote teams to get together and have a fun night exploring virtually! Get together virtually, and explore each room, the interactive platform allows you to look for clues as you navigate through each level. If you are looking for exciting and team-building Thanksgiving ideas, a virtual escape room is a great option for you and your team. Get together virtually and work together to solve the puzzle, and escape as fast as you can! As far as thanksgiving themed team building activities go, you should not miss out on this one.
2.15 Thanksgiving History
Spread some knowledge this thanksgiving! For some unique Thanksgiving ideas, brush up on the history of thanksgiving, and give a short presentation to your employees. Share the story of Martin Frobisher, who first searched for the Northwest passage from England during a 1578 voyage; this was when the first Thanksgiving celebration took place. Conclude your presentation with some trivia for everyone to participate in. Split into breakout rooms with a list of questions to answer, and may the best team win! Thanksgiving virtual activities like this allow for participation from even the quieter employees.
2.16 Virtual Gratitude Wall
Thanksgiving is all about practicing gratitude for the people in your life. For some heartfeltvirtual thanksgiving ideas, create a virtual gratitude wall together. Invite your colleagues to think of a message of gratitude for someone in the workplace. Ask your colleagues to leave their messages of gratitude on an online whiteboard such as Miro or add the messages to your communication platforms, such as Microsoft Teams or Slack.
2.17 Virtual Shopping Spree
Who doesn’t love a shopping spree? Thanksgiving is the perfect holiday to treat yourself to something nice. We all love discounts, and at this time of year, we can look forward to Black Friday and Thanksgiving Day sales. Get your team together on an arranged day for a video call, and chat with each other during online shopping. Share your purchases in real-time and get into the shopping spirit together. Who knows what you all might find together! Thanksgiving team building activities like these help people who usually might not have a conversation talk to one another.
2.18 Virtual Community Volunteering
This year, think of some charitable Thanksgiving ideas. Many companies participate in community services together and treat it as one of the thanksgiving themed team building activities. You can participate virtually this year. You can volunteer to assist many different charities virtually. Some of them that you and your team can get involved with this year are Hire Heroes USA, UN Volunteers, Career Village or Be My Eyes.
2.19 Capture the Moment
Remember to capture the moment and get a group photo of you all celebrating Thanksgiving and playing virtual thanksgiving games together. Assign a hashtag to your celebrations and share it on social media to create a buzz and sense of community amongst your staff. Try out silly filters, take a Tik Tok, or make an Instagram reel. Ask everyone to get involved and post their photos of the celebrations online.
3 FAQs
- What are some virtual Thanksgiving crafts?
Some virtual Thanksgiving crafts include creating hand turkeys, creating a time capsule of your gratitude messages, creating a virtual gratitude wall, and hosting a virtual paint and prosecco night!
- What are some thanksgiving ideas for employees?
Some thanksgiving ideas for employees include thanksgiving happy hour, Pictionary, and family feud.
- What are some Thanksgiving-themed ideas for work?
Here are our top themed Thanksgiving ideas:
- Turkey themed
- Football themed
- Autumnal themed
- Thanksgiving history themed
- Gratitude themed
- Cooking themed
What do you give employees for Thanksgiving?Some great gifts you can send to your employees this Thanksgiving can be decorative pumpkins for their desks, fall garlands to decorate their office space at home galaxy chocolate snack hamper, a craft beer gift set, a Thanksgiving coloring book, a Thanksgiving turkey wall art, Thanksgiving wreath to hang on their doors or an adorable Thanksgiving gnome decoration.
- What do you give employees for Thanksgiving?
Some great gifts you can send to your employees this Thanksgiving can be decorative pumpkins for their desks, fall garlands to decorate their office space at home galaxy chocolate snack hamper, a craft beer gift set, a Thanksgiving coloring book, a Thanksgiving turkey wall art, Thanksgiving wreath to hang on their doors or an adorable Thanksgiving gnome decoration.
