Thanksgiving Printables 2026: Place Cards and a Kids' Table Sheet

Thanksgiving Day 2026 is Thursday, Nov. 26, 12 days from Saturday, Nov. 14, and four free printables for the table are ready to print: place cards at 8 to a page, gratitude cards at 6 to a page, a 12-word word search with an answer key, and a kids’ table activity sheet with a seven-question quiz. The date comes from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) federal holidays list, which prints “Thursday, November 26 | Thanksgiving Day”. The quiz facts come from the National Archives, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Census Bureau.

For the cooking and shopping side, see our Thanksgiving 2026 planner and countdown. The date itself is on the Thanksgiving date page and the November 2026 printable calendar.

Thanksgiving place cards: 8 to a page

The place card PDF is one US Letter page of 8 fold-over cards. Each card has a dashed cut line, a dashed fold line across the middle and a name line on both faces, so guests on either side of the table can read it. A small line reads “Thanksgiving · Thu., Nov. 26, 2026”. Print at 100% size, cut out the cards, fold them on the middle line and write a name on each.

Thanksgiving gratitude cards: 6 to a page

The gratitude card PDF has 6 cards on one page. Each card starts “I am thankful for”, leaves three lines to finish the sentence and has a “From” line. Leave one at each seat, or hand them out before dinner and read a few aloud.

Kids’ table word search and activity sheet

The word search is a 13 by 13 grid with 12 words: turkey, Pilgrim, cranberry, Thursday, gratitude, Lincoln, harvest, Minnesota, archives, feast, stuffing and pumpkin (printed in capitals on the sheet). Words run across, down or diagonally down to the right, never backward. The grid is generated from a fixed seed, and each word appears exactly once. Page 2 is the answer key, with the letters of every word darkened and the row, column and direction of each start listed.

The kids’ table activity sheet fills one page: four sourced facts, the quiz with its answers on a cut-off strip at the bottom, three “I am thankful for” lines and a checklist of kids’ table jobs. The jobs list is our own wording; the facts and quiz answers are below.

Quiz answers and sources

Question	Answer	Source and year
Day of the week of Thanksgiving 2026	Thursday, Nov. 26	OPM, Federal Holidays, 2026
Which Thursday did Congress set in 1941?	The fourth Thursday in November	National Archives, “Congress Establishes Thanksgiving”
Which Thursday did Lincoln name in 1863?	The last Thursday of November	Lincoln’s proclamation of Oct. 3, 1863, DocsTeach
Turkeys raised in 2026	199 million, up 3 percent from 2025 (forecast)	USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), Sept. 25, 2026
Largest turkey-producing state	Minnesota, 34.0 million, up 1 percent from the previous year	NASS, Sept. 25, 2026
Small places named after the turkey	Seven	Census Bureau story of 2019, revised 2024
Places named after the cranberry side dish	Five	Census Bureau story of 2019, revised 2024

Why the quiz says fourth Thursday and last Thursday

The National Archives says President Roosevelt signed the resolution on Dec. 26, 1941, “thus establishing the fourth Thursday in November as the Federal Thanksgiving Day holiday.” The law today, 5 U.S. Code 6103, lists “Thanksgiving Day, the fourth Thursday in November.” Lincoln’s proclamation, dated Oct. 3, 1863, asked Americans “to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next.” Both dates fall on a Thursday in November, but the rules differ; the quiz asks about each. More on how the date is set is in our story on why Thanksgiving 2026 is Nov. 26.

Turkey and cranberry place names

The Census Bureau’s story “Fun Facts About Thanksgiving From Turkey, Texas, to Pilgrim, Mich.”, last revised Oct. 3, 2024, says seven small U.S. places are named after the Thanksgiving centerpiece, among them Turkey city, Texas (population 339), and five places are named after the cranberry side dish. The page gives no year for those counts, so the quiz uses them as the Census Bureau’s 2019 story, revised 2024, reports them. The USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) “Turkeys Raised” report of Sept. 25, 2026 puts the 2026 forecast at 199 million turkeys, up 3 percent from 2025, with Minnesota the largest producing state at 34.0 million, up 1 percent.