I don’t mean to brag, but my friends and I throw a mean Friendsgiving.
I honestly do consider myself an expert on what foods bring people (specifically young adult women) together. However, in order to throw the ULTIMATE Friendsgiving feast, you need to have all of the elements correct.
You need to have the perfect location, entertainment and of course you need to have the perfect foods. Luckily, I’m here to help, and no Friendsgiving will go un-celebrated. Grab your favorite cozy sweater and leggings, and follow this guide to your perfect Friendsgiving.
Time and Location
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As far as time and location go, this honestly depends on the group. When I was in high school, my friends and I would always have it during the last school day before Thanksgiving break during lunch where we all knew we would see each other.
Since I’m in big kid school now, I’m blessed with friends who live within 20 minutes of Hofstra’s campus, so they have kitchens and dinner tables to make and serve the food. If you have it in your dorm, that’s okay too! Lounges are always a great hang-out spot when you require more space than the dorms provide.
As far as timing goes, my only advice is to have it before Thanksgiving actually happens. Once the holiday is over, it’s over. You can’t try to get back into the spirit of a holiday that already passed. Not to mention, I want to celebrate Christmas for as long as I can.
It’s kind of like people that got all dressed up and had Halloween parties the weekend AFTER Halloween. You tried, but you still failed. Sorry.
Entertainment
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I don’t know about you, but Christmas music makes me happier than anything in the world. There’s a reason we have songs about Christmas and not Thanksgiving. It’s superior, and while Thanksgiving is a necessary step between Halloween and Christmas it isn’t special enough to deserve its own songs. Spotify and Apple Music both curate amazing Christmas playlists, and you can never go wrong with them.
However, you can also take your Friendsgiving another step and play your favorite holiday movies during your meal, and this is especially perfect if you’re stuck in your dorm. “Elf” is a classic, and “The Nightmare Before Christmas” is perfect for the entire holiday season. The key here is to get anything that makes you want to drink hot chocolate and dance with Michael Bublé in the snow. It makes the warmth of the kitchen, dorm or house so much better.
Foods
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Like everyone on the planet, I love food. However, I’m also a very picky eater. Not in the sense that there are only a few foods that I like. It’s just that there are only a few foods that I love, and those are the ones that deserve to be appreciated all the time.
In my hometown, no gathering is incomplete without buffalo chicken dip. If you’ve never been graced by this gift from heaven, it’s the most perfect dish in the world. You take chicken, ranch, hot sauce, cream cheese, and a ton of cheddar and throw it in the oven or Crockpot for a while. Pretty soon, you’ll have the melty/spicy/creamy dip of your dreams.
You can get tortilla chips and eat it — or my personal favorite is to get one of those giant baguettes and eat it like a cave person out of the pan while I watch everyone else cook. It’s the perfect dish, don’t get it twisted.
As far as main courses go, no one has the time or energy to actually make a turkey. Personally, my friends and I love to order like 3 pizzas from our favorite pizza shop and go ham. Especially since we’re in New York, there are some amazing pizza restaurants around Hofstra, and a lot of them deliver.
Don’t get me wrong, I still love when people bring green bean casserole and crescent rolls to Friendsgiving. However, the idea that we have to stick to a traditional menu is bonkers. Pizza is the perfect food, and we should incorporate things that are actually good into the dinner portion of the day (turkeys are outdated).
My last piece of advice is: go off, sis. Your Friendsgiving is YOUR Friendsgiving! If you want to make an entire turkey with your friends, no one is stopping you (except public safety if you set off the smoke alarms).
Good luck, bonne chance, and Godspeed, my friends. Happy Friendsgiving!