Friendsgiving: a holiday tradition celebrating friendship during Thanksgiving season

Written by Autumn Kirkman | Graphic by Juana Garcia

Thanksgiving: a celebration of thanks, family, food and friends. Typically held at a family member’s house and involves family you only see during holidays due to different cities, jobs and lives. We take time to celebrate our appreciation for our families, but what about our friends? These are the people we spend a significant amount of time around--- whether it’s at school, work or recreational activities. That’s where “Friendsgiving” comes in. A time to celebrate your favorite memories, foods and people who might be even closer to you than most of your family is. While there isn’t a clear beginning to the creation of Friendsgiving, the TV sitcom “Friends” showed how friends can make the holiday exciting and enjoyable by just being themselves.

Coming from a broken home and moving to a completely different environment, I relied on the few friends I had to make the holidays a better time for me. It wasn’t because I didn’t enjoy my new family; it was because I wanted to be able to create memories with people I didn’t grow up with.

My first experience with Friendsgiving was during my sophomore year of high school. I had just joined the yearbook staff, and the leadership team was trying to figure out a way for the staff to bond outside of school. One girl mentioned doing Thanksgiving at someone’s house, and from there we planned our own “Yearbook Friendsgiving.” Everyone who attended brought a dish, and the girl who hosted it had a fire pit where we sat around and played games and just talked. That’s when I fell in love with the idea of spending holidays with my friends. It wasn’t about the food we brought or the place we were at, it was about the memories we were creating and the stories we shared. Quality time spent with quality people.

Hosting a Friendsgiving has so many benefits:

- You get to cook with your best friends. Introduce them to what you grew up eating.

- Share life stories they didn’t know you have.

- Take fun pictures that will last a lifetime.

- And create memories with people that you genuinely like to be around. It doesn’t matter if you’ve known them for 5 years or 5 weeks. What matters is that you’re getting the opportunity to relax, eat and laugh with your friends.

How to host one?

1) Plan out a day, Friday, maybe Saturday.

2) Figure out who’s going and where its being held.

3) Decide on the menu then dish out who’s bringing what.

4) Show up and have a great time. That's all it takes and you’ll have memories that will last forever.