Thanksgiving Toast: What to Say, With 8 Short Examples

The short version: a Thanksgiving toast runs 30 to 90 seconds and usually comes from the host, once everyone is seated and has something in their glass. Say why you're the one talking, name one specific thing from this year, turn it toward the people at the table, and raise your glass. Eight short toasts you can borrow from are below.

Most Thanksgiving toasts go wrong in one of two directions. Someone stands up with a list of everything they're thankful for, which takes four minutes and sounds like an annual report. Or someone says "I'm thankful for all of you" and sits down, which is true and gone by the time the rolls get passed. The middle path is one detail. The year the oven died. The first time the grandkids sat at the big table. One thing, said plainly.

Nobody at the table is grading you. They want to eat. A good toast gives them a moment that could only be this year, at this table, and then gets out of the way of the food.

Who gives the Thanksgiving toast, and when

Usually the host. You did the work, so you get the first word. If you'd rather not, ask someone a day ahead: a grandparent, a guest who drove six hours, or whoever in the family actually enjoys talking. Don't spring it on anyone at the table.

At bigger dinners there may be two short toasts, and that works fine as long as they're spread out.

Wait until the last person sits down. If someone is still in the kitchen getting the rolls, they will miss it, and it will be the one person who did the most work.

A simple formula

1. Why you're talking. One line. At a family table everyone knows who you are, so skip the introduction and say why you stood up. "I'm hosting, so I get one minute before the gravy gets a skin on it."
2. One true thing from this year. A moment, a habit, something that happened in this house or to these people. Small and specific beats big and sweeping.
3. The turn. Point it at the room. Who came, who cooked, who drove, who lent you a folding chair.
4. The glass. "Raise your glass," then a short last line that calls back to your detail.

Here is the skeleton:

"I'm hosting this year, so I get to say something before we eat. [One thing that happened this year.] [Why that makes you glad these people are here.] Everyone, raise whatever you've got. To [the callback]."

How long a Thanksgiving toast should be

Thirty to ninety seconds. That's roughly 65 to 200 words at a normal pace. Under a minute is better at a table where the turkey is already carved. If you're the second speaker, go shorter than the first. Read yours out loud with a timer, or paste it into the speech length calculator, and cut whatever runs past ninety seconds.

What to skip

• Politics. Not even a joke. Not even if you're sure everyone agrees. Someone doesn't, and now dinner has a topic.
• The thankful list. Eleven things you're grateful for is a lot of nodding for everyone else. Pick one.
• Lines off a greeting card. "Count our blessings," "an attitude of gratitude," "eat, drink and be merry." The table has heard them every year. The cliché detector will catch them if they sneak in.
• Relationship and baby updates. No "maybe next year someone will bring a date." The person you mean knows you mean them.
• Bodies and plates. Nothing about weight, diets, or who's taking seconds.
• Backhanded thanks. "I'm thankful my brother finally found a job" is a dig with a glass in its hand.
• Inside jokes. If three people laugh and nine people wait, it wasn't a toast.

Toasting when someone is missing

Grief, a deployment, a divorce, someone working a hospital shift. The empty chair is in the room whether you mention it or not, and a short mention is usually kinder than pretending. A few things help:

• Ask first. Check with the person closest to the loss a day or two before. Some people want it said out loud. Some would rather not cry over the sweet potatoes. Both are fine.
• Say the name. People who are grieving usually want to hear it.
• One sentence, one small detail. The dish they always brought, the seat they always took. Not a eulogy.
• Then turn back to the room. The toast is still to the people at the table.
• For someone deployed or working, name them, say you'll call after dinner, and save them a plate.
• For a divorce or a family rift, leave it out of the toast entirely. Toast the people who came.

The family Thanksgiving toast guide has more on the first holiday after a loss, blended families, and new partners at the table.

If you or your guests don't drink

Any glass works. Cider, sparkling water, iced tea, milk at the kids' end. Say "raise whatever's in front of you" so nobody feels singled out, and never announce who isn't drinking. If you're the host and you don't drink, toast with your water and nobody will notice. If you're stocking the table, put out something fizzy without alcohol next to the wine, and the champagne toast calculator will tell you how many bottles you need.

A short grace, if your table wants one

Some families say grace and some don't, and plenty of tables have both kinds of people. If you're asked to say one at a mixed table, keep it short and broad enough that everyone can sit through it comfortably. Ask the host before offering. Here's one you can use as written:

"For the food on this table and the hands that made it. For everyone who got here, and for the ones we're missing tonight. Help us be good company to each other, and to remember the people who don't have a table like this one. Amen."

If your table includes people of other faiths or none, end on "Let's eat" instead of "Amen." Then the host can go straight into the toast.

8 short Thanksgiving toasts

Names and details are placeholders. Timings assume about 130 words a minute. Keep the shape and swap in your own one thing.

For the host, before the turkey is carved (about 45 seconds)

Before anyone picks up the carving knife, I get one minute. Host rules.

This is the year our oven quit on Tuesday afternoon. The turkey you're about to eat was roasted two doors down, in Brooks's kitchen, and carried back up the sidewalk in a roasting pan by my son and me, very slowly, in the dark, like we were moving a sleeping baby. Brooks, you're at this table for a reason.

So that's my thank-you this year. To the people who lend you their oven. Everybody, raise your glass. To borrowed ovens, and to the two of us who didn't drop it.

Why it works: one real mishap from this year, a thank-you to a specific person, and a last line that calls back to the turkey's trip down the sidewalk.

For a guest thanking the host (about 40 seconds)

Hi, everyone. Most of you know me as the one who brought the store-bought pie, which I stand behind.

I want to say one thing about Ainsley. She started brining this turkey on Monday. There's a timeline taped to her fridge, and I read it, and there's a line on it that says "4:15, panic." It's twenty to five and nobody's panicking, so the plan worked.

Ainsley, thank you for having us. Everyone, glasses up. To our host, and to the timeline.

Why it works: the guest notices one thing about how hard the host worked, and the laugh is affectionate.

For a grandparent (about 55 seconds)

I've sat through more of these dinners than anyone at this table, which is the only reason I get to talk.

When I was a boy, the kids ate at a card table in the hallway. You didn't get promoted to the big table until somebody got married or somebody died. This year Avery asked if we could bring the card table back, because the kids like it better out there. They can hear everything we say, and we can't make out a word of theirs.

There are four generations in this house tonight. I counted twice. So raise your glass, everyone. To the big table, and to the card table, where I'm told the real conversation happens.

Why it works: a picture from the old days set next to one from this year, so the history does the talking and nobody gets a lecture.

For a kid to give (about 25 seconds)

Mom said I could do the toast this year if I practiced. I practiced.

I'm thankful for my cousins coming, for the rolls, and for Barney, who is under the table right now waiting for somebody to drop something. Nobody is dropping anything.

Everybody hold up your cups. To family, and to Barney, who is about to be very disappointed.

Why it works: kids are funniest when they're literal. Let them keep their own words and keep it under thirty seconds.

For Friendsgiving (about 45 seconds)

Okay, quick toast, and then you can go back to judging each other's casseroles.

Cass started this dinner six years ago in an apartment with two chairs. We ate on the floor. Somebody brought a rotisserie chicken because none of us knew how to cook a turkey, and honestly, it was great. Now there are fourteen of us, a real table, and three separate mac and cheeses, which is two more than any table needs.

Most of us don't live near our families. This is the table we picked. Raise your glass. To Cass, and to the floor years.

Why it works: it names what makes a friends' table different, then lands on the group's own origin story instead of a general line about friendship.

For the host after a hard year (about 70 seconds)

This one is from the host, and it's a little different this year.

It's been a hard one. Most of you know Cora spent a lot of the spring in and out of the hospital, and there was a week in April when none of us were sure about November. She's sitting right there. She made the cranberry sauce, and she's very proud of it, and it's the canned kind.

I'm not going to pretend this year was fine. It wasn't. But every person at this table showed up for it, with casseroles and rides and nights in that awful chair in the waiting room. So tonight I'm grateful for exactly one thing, and it's that we're all here and nobody has to drive anywhere after.

Glasses up. To Cora, and to the canned cranberry sauce.

Why it works: it says plainly that the year was hard, thanks the people who helped by what they did, and still finds one small thing to smile at.

For when someone is away, deployed or working (about 45 seconds)

Before we eat, one quick thing. There's a plate missing at this table, and it's Archer's.

He's on a ship somewhere he isn't allowed to tell us about. He called this morning at five our time to say he was having turkey off a tray, and it was, and I'm quoting, fine. He also asked whether anyone had touched his stuffing. Nobody has. It's in the blue dish, and it's staying there.

We're calling him after dessert, so think of something nice to say. Raise your glass, everyone. To Archer, and to the blue dish, which is off limits.

Why it works: the missing person gets a concrete, slightly funny detail instead of a sad pause, and the toast ends with something the table can do.

For when you're handed the toast with no warning (about 20 seconds)

Nobody warned me about this, so here's what I've got.

I counted on the way in. There are eleven people in this house and nine chairs, and somehow everyone is sitting down. That's this family.

Raise your glass. To whoever went to the garage for the folding chairs.

Why it works: it uses something everyone in the room can see right now, which is the fastest way to be specific on the spot.

Delivering it

• Stand up, or don't. At a table of six, staying seated is fine. At twenty, stand so the far end can hear you.
• Wait for quiet. One tap on a glass, not five. Or just say "Can I have one minute," and wait.
• Hold a card if you need it. Nobody minds. Memorize the first line and the last.
• Slow down. Forty-five seconds feels long when people are looking at you. It isn't.
• Sit down after the last line. The glass going up is the ending.

If your family laughs more than it cries, the funny Thanksgiving toast guide covers how to get a laugh without making anyone at the table the punchline.