13 Thanksgiving riddles the whole table can actually solve
I'm Heron. I do arithmetic in my head for a living, and my cousin got me with that bread basket two Novembers ago, in front of nine people and a cooling turkey.
So these thirteen are the ones a table can work out. Nobody needs a date, a name, or a fact they were supposed to have memorized.
Why the basket runs backwards
The empty basket is the one number the riddle gives you for free. Start there and undo a single guest at a time.
Undoing a guest takes two moves: add one, then double. Add back the extra roll they took, then double it for the half that left with them.
That is The Oven Clock from our Thanksgiving trivia, working on bread instead of a bird. Let's run it on a cookie tin with a greedier rule: half the tin plus two, three kids, empty.
Step 1 of 7the tin ends empty
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Thanksgiving riddles for adults, where the numbers lie
Six riddles with numbers in them, and the numbers are the liars. None of them needs a fact you already own, so nobody at the table loses for not knowing something.
The bread basket up top was riddle 1, so we pick up at 2. Commit to an answer before you open the card, and keep a private tally: the scoreboard at the end wants a number from you.
Thanksgiving lands on November 26 this year, so the Thanksgiving math riddles below are the half worth rehearsing first. Riddle 7 is the one to save for the table: the fourth Thursday of November can never arrive later than the 28th.
Hosting a party?
Riddle 2 of 13
Ten guests each eat one drumstick and nobody shares. What is the fewest turkeys that were carved?
Hint: Count the legs on one bird before you count the guests.
5
✕10 guests, 10 turkeysa bird per plate, says the instinct
12 drumsticks a birda turkey walks on two legs
210 ÷ 2 = 5 turkeysten drumsticks, five birds
The number the riddle hands you counts people, and the number it asks for counts birds.
Riddle 3 of 13
Each square card table seats four, one to a side. You push three of them into a row. How many seats?
Hint: Look at the two places where the tables touch.
8
✕3 × 4 = 12 seatsevery side counted, joins included
Riddle 3 is the one that quietly ruins a seating plan. Two tables touching hide a side each, and the chairs disappear with the sides, the same way a Secret Santa turns 56 gifts into 8.
Round two puts the arithmetic away. The trap moves into the sentence, and sentences travel down a dinner table far better than numbers do.
Fair warning: the youngest guests usually win this half. They answer the question as written, which is the entire skill.
Thanksgiving riddles for kids, and one that catches every adult
Six riddles, no calculator, nothing to look up. The answer to each one is sitting in the sentence, so the youngest guest gets there as often as anybody.
One habit clears most of them: take every word literally, scenery included. Riddle 8 is the exception and the meanest thing on this page, so hand that one to the adults.
Read them aloud if you can. A sentence gives itself away faster in the open, and the table hears the trick a beat before the person holding the phone does.
Riddle 8 of 13
You drive 60 mph toward Grandma's, she drives 40 mph toward your house. When you pass, who is closer to her?
Hint: Ask where the two cars are at the exact moment they pass.
Neither
✕the faster car is further alongspeed decides it, says the instinct
1passing = one spot on the roadtwo cars, same mile marker
2= the same distanceneither of you is closer
Speed decides when the cars meet, and the meeting point decides the distance.
Riddle 9 of 13
When does Christmas come before Thanksgiving?
Hint: Where else can one word come before another?
In the dictionary
1C comes before Tthe alphabet puts it first
2= in the dictionarythe one place it happens
Nobody in that sentence said calendar, and every brain at the table supplies one anyway.
Riddle 10 of 13
What three keys open no doors, and one of them is sitting on your table tonight?
Hint: Say the word keys out loud and stop hearing a lock.
Monkeys, donkeys, turkeys
1mon-key, don-key, tur-keythe ending does all the work
2= the turkey is dinnerthree keys, one of them carved
Jockeys and lackeys pass the same test, and only one of these keys gets carved.
Riddle 11 of 13
The more of me you take out of the pie tin, the bigger I get. What am I?
Hint: Look at what stays in the tin once the slices are gone.
The hole
1a slice leaves, the gap growsevery serving widens it
2= the hole in the tinthe only part that grows
Taking and growing sound like opposites until you watch the empty part of the tin.
Riddle 12 of 13
It has to be broken before anyone can cook with it. What is it?
Hint: Think about what half the dishes on this table started as.
An egg
1broken first, cooked secondthe order is the clue
2= an eggthe pie, the stuffing, the batter
A wishbone gets broken too, and nothing on this table gets cooked with one.
Riddle 13 of 13
Take the thanks out of Thanksgiving. What word is left, and what does it ask you to do?
Hint: The answer is still sitting inside the word.
Giving
1Thanksgiving − thankssix letters off the front
2= givingthe rest of the word, and the day
This one only works in writing, which is why it waited until the end of the page.
Every trap on this page runs on one reflex: the answer that arrives before you finish reading. Psychologist Shane Frederick built a famous three-question test out of it, and at Harvard, MIT, and Princeton most students grabbed the fast, wrong answer.
We named that reflex The Candy Trap in our Halloween riddles, and it works the same on a highway as it does in a candy aisle. The missing dollar riddle runs on the same nerve if your table wants a third round, and a stable with fourteen heads and forty legs waits a month later.
What to remember
Start where the story ends. When a riddle tells you how it finishes, undo it one step at a time: baskets, ovens, and connecting flights all give way to that.
Count the thing the question asks for. Drumsticks, birds, and guests are three different numbers, and only one of them is ever the answer.
Get both numbers onto the same clock. Time zones, halves, table sides: compare things only once they are measured the same way.
Honest tally: how many did you solve without peeking?
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FAQ
The ones where the arithmetic is tiny and the wording does the damage: the bread basket that empties on the third guest, three card tables that lose four seats when you push them together, the aunt calling from two time zones away, and the November date that can never land later than the 28th. All four are on this page with worked answers.
Round two is the kid-friendly half: the three keys that open no doors, the thing that gets bigger the more you take out of the pie tin, the thing that has to be broken before anyone can use it, and the word left over when you take the thanks out of Thanksgiving. Read them out loud and let the youngest guest answer first.
In the dictionary. C comes before T, so the only place one holiday can precede the other is an alphabetical list. The riddle works because the word “before” drags every brain at the table onto a calendar.
November 28. The holiday is the fourth Thursday in November, and the latest a first Thursday can arrive is November 7, which happens when November 1 falls on a Friday. Add three weeks and you land on the 28th, even in a November that holds five Thursdays.
Copy all 13 with the button above the first card, read them out one at a time, and make everyone commit to an answer before you reveal anything. Keep a tally per person and hold each answer back until everyone at the table has said a number, because the reveal is the part they play for.
