Hosting My First Friendsgiving
I have ALWAYS wanted to host a Friendsgiving and finally all of my
closest girlfriends were living near enough to me to actually make it
a reality! I was so excited and of course tried to make it the most
memorable Friendsgiving I could for everyone.
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Step one: Guest list and Invitations
The guest list part was easy for me with my four ride or dies, Kristin,
Abigail, Nicole, and Makenzie, making up the list. Picking the invitations,
well that was a whole different ball game. I couldn't decide if I wanted
to do a TV themed Friendsgiving (Friends or New Girl), but eventually decided
to go with these that I created in Canva! They were simple and easy
to send out to everyone via text!
.
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Step two: Decorations!
Decorating for Friendsgiving was so much fun. I took advantage of
the fall decorations I already had up in my home and then added in
a couple of small Friendsgiving specific ones including pictures of me
with my girls and a banner I made with burlap and black paint.
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For place settings I decided to forgo the name cards and let everyone choose
to sit wherever they wanted so. I used "fancy" fall paper plates and napkins
from Walmart (because who really wants to do dishes?!) and then
got these adorable Friendsgiving cups.
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Step three: Food!
I love to host and doing everything on my own is a personal challenge
I accept with open arms for every event I host. However, for this
one I decided to do something a little different. I asked each friend
to bring their favorite Thanksgiving side dish or dessert and then just
focused on doing the turkey (Oh and of course making everyone’s favorite mac
and cheese. Pretty sure each one of us had at least 3 or 4 helpings of it. lol Recipe here).
This potluck style made things a lot easier for me and it was also a great
way to learn something else about my friends!
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The food was served buffet style so everyone could dig in when
and however many times they wanted to.
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Turkey (Recipe here)
Stuffing, Gravy, and Mashed Potatoes
Green Bean Casserole, Mac and Cheese, and Rolls
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Abigail was the chosen turkey carver!
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Step four: Activities/Games!
For things to do I set out some of my favorite board games including
Mad Gab, Life Quarter Life Crisis, Botched Operation, etc. We ended up
playing Heads Up on my phone which was so much fun!
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Step five: Party favors!
With this being my first annual Friendsgiving, I wanted party favors
that people were going to want to keep and ones that would help everyone
remember this momentous event so when I found these Friendsgiving t-shirts on Etsy
I knew they were the way to go! I also threw in a clean Friendsgiving cup and
these cute little homemade m&m turkeys to "sweeten" the deal.
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The girls!
The real us.
It's tradition.
Twinny!
I had an absolute blast hosting this Friendsgiving and it was so great
to be able to see all of my best friends especially since this was taking
place right before they all were planning on moving away! Some out
of town, some out of state, and one out of the country! It definitely was
a bittersweet moment when it came time to say goodbye, but that is
another reason why this Friendsgiving will always be so special to me
and I will hold the memories close to my heart forever. Hopefully
we will get to do it again someday!
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Do you attend or host a Friendsgiving every year? What do you do at yours?