Thanksgiving Table Topics

Thanksgiving can be a wonderful time to come around the table and connect with family and friends with whom you may not usually get extended stretches of intentional time. However, coming up with conversation starters can be difficult. The weather can be dreary, not everyone is into sports, and studies have shown that contentious political conversations cause cooked turkey to dry out and shrivel up to nothing. (Wikipedia is our source for that last one.)

Since we at NCFCA are always for good discussion and healthy debate, here are ten conversation starters for stuffing the Thanksgiving meal with engaging dialogue and setting the table for lively discourse. We’ll roll ahead and skip the obvious “what are you most thankful this year” question, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t still ask it.

These questions are meant to be starting points, and everything after that is gravy. Think of these as the meat and potatoes of the conversation.

1. What is your worst holiday cooking disaster?
2. What is the weirdest side dish you’ve had?
3. (To parents or grandparents) How were your Thanksgiving celebrations different when you were my age?
4. (To kids) When you’re older, what Thanksgiving tradition are you going to pass down to your family?
5. If you could be in a doctorate program for free, what doctorate would you pursue?
6. If you were a speech event, which one would you be and why?
7. What is the best/worst limited prep prompt you’ve seen or heard?
8. When in conflict, apple pie should be valued over pecan pie. This isn’t technically a question as much as it is a statement of fact that we feel is indisputable and irrefutable. No disrespect to pecan, but c’mon. It’s apple pie.
9. Resolved: Christmas music should be illegal between Dec. 26 and 4:00 p.m. Thanksgiving Day.
10. Are you excited for tournament season to start in January? We are!

We hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving celebrating blessings and spending time with friends and family! As we approach Thanksgiving we reflect on the words of Paul in Philippians Chapter 1.

“I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now…”