Friendsgiving & Thanksgiving competition ideas

Updated October 2026 · The potluck ballot, the Turkey Bowl, and the pie contest

Every Friendsgiving and every Thanksgiving table already has a competition running underneath the meal. Somebody's stuffing is better than somebody else's. Somebody dominates the backyard Turkey Bowl every single year. Somebody's pie disappears first and somebody's sits there untouched next to the pumpkin one. Everybody already knows the rankings. Nobody's ever made them official.

If You Ain't First turns the table's unspoken standings into an actual leaderboard: a group vote for the dish, a running scoreboard for the game, and an AI announcer named Ricky who calls the results instead of letting them die in a group text the next morning.

The potluck dish ballot

Everyone brings a dish, everyone eats everyone's dish, and the actual best-dish opinion stays scattered across a dozen private conversations at the table instead of landing anywhere official. Fix it with one ballot, opened right before dessert:

• One category, or several. The simplest version is a single “Best Dish” vote. The better version splits it — Best Side, Best Main, Best Dessert, Most Likely to Start a Fight at Next Year's Table — so more than one person walks away with a title.
• The cook can't vote for themselves. Say it out loud before the ballot opens. Self-votes are the fastest way to make the count look rigged, even when it isn't.
• Put it on a group vote board everyone votes on from their phone, one vote each, results revealed live at the table instead of a show of hands that three people claim they miscounted.

The Turkey Bowl

Backyard football on Thanksgiving morning is old enough to be a tradition in its own right, and most groups still track it the same way they did in 2005: by memory, which means every family has a “we're undefeated” claim nobody can actually verify.

• Score the game, not just who won. Touchdowns, MVP votes, the one defensive play everyone's still talking about by the time the turkey comes out — put it on a game-night leaderboardso this year's Turkey Bowl has a real box score instead of a legend that grows every retelling.
• Run it as a season, not a single morning. If the same crew plays every year, carry the board over — a running Turkey Bowl record settles the undefeated-streak argument for good, with dates attached.

The pie contest

Pumpkin versus pecan versus whatever someone's aunt brings that nobody can name is its own Thanksgiving institution. Run it exactly like the potluck ballot — one vote each, baker excluded from voting on their own entry — and keep a running “Pie Champion” title that has to be defended every year instead of just assumed.

Give the verdict an announcer

A ballot read off someone's phone in a loud kitchen is an anticlimax. Ricky calls the results instead — crowning the potluck winner and the Turkey Bowl MVP the way an actual sports broadcast would, dialed to whatever the table can handle: the warm “soft” setting for the family table, something sharper if it's the friend-group Friendsgiving and everyone's in on the joke. Hear him first at the Roast Generator, or try the voting mechanic right now on our live vote board before you put an actual pie contest in front of it.

FAQ

Is this the same as the white elephant gift exchange page? No — that's the gift ballot, usually run after dinner or at the office party. This is the meal and the backyard game themselves, usually earlier in the day. Plenty of tables run both boards on the same date.

Do we need everyone to download anything? No app, no download. One link in the family or friend-group chat and everyone's voting or logging scores from their phone.

Does this work for a small Friendsgiving, not just a big family one? Yes — the ballot and the scoreboard work the same at four people or forty. Smaller groups usually run the single “Best Dish” category instead of splitting it out.

What does it cost? Free for three active boards, unlimited people on each. Run the potluck ballot and the Turkey Bowl scoreboard as two separate free boards, or combine them into one — your call.

Settle the table before dessert

One tap sets up a group-vote board pre-filled for exactly this: no metric to track, just the table voting, on the record, before anyone argues about it for the third year running.