When you have family two hours in one direction, two hours in a second direction, and five hours in a third direction – it is difficult to try to get everyone together for a holiday.
Especially when your family also has many other branches of their family to celebrate with. The scheduling becomes chaotic and next thing you know, you are having Thanksgiving dinner in January.
This year we decided to have our second Friendsgiving, an event in which you invite some of your friends and have Thanksgiving dinner together.
To me, this is a less stressful time because your friends tend to be a much relaxed bunch to be around than your family.
I have put together some of the details for our Friendsgiving to share and give you some last minute ideas to use for your dinners tomorrow!
Our recipes have come from all over the place (Pinterest, google, Food Network, you name it) and since we don’t have any ‘family recipes’ we use these each year as our own family recipes.
Tables
Our tables were very simple, the two dining tables are already set up on a regular basis so I just used what was out instead of buying anything holiday specific.
For the kids table, I bought a set of paper plates/napkins that were kid friendly and fun and .98 plastic cups from Walmart with turkeys and other fun Thanksgiving cartoons on them. I grabbed a plastic fall tablecloth to ensure they didn’t ruin any hardwoods with spills. The night before, I decided to make turkey Rice Krispies treats to put at each childs seat (they did not have any candy corn in the stores I went to, so I had to use M&M’s for the feathers) as well as an Indian feather headband.
Appetizers
Cheese + meat plate (shaped like a turkey, of course)
Vegetable platter
Deviled eggs (orange with steams to look like pumpkins)
Main dishes
Pioneer herb roasted turkey
Honey glazed ham (cooked based on package instructions)
Side dishes
Sour cream and chive mashed potatoes
Patti Labelles mac + cheese
Bread stuffing
Green bean casserole
Sweet corn casserole
Hawaiin sweet rolls
Desserts
Pumpkin pie
Tollhouse chocolate chip pie
Apple crumb pie
(with ice cream on the side)
Drinks
Autumn apple rose Sangria
Red wine Sangria
Caramel apple mimosas
Decorations
To make the event a bit more fun, my toddler and I created a photo frame to commemorate the day. I also picked up some ‘photo booth props’ from the small Thanksgiving section left at our Walmart. The craftsmanship was a little faulty, but everyone enjoyed it! We purchased two poster boards from Dollar Tree and sat them side by side, taping two paint stirrers across the top seam and bottom seam. I measured three inches in from the top, left side, and right side and drew lines then six inches in from the bottom and drew a line. I used a razor cutter that I had in my craft room to cut out this section of the board creating a frame. We glued (and stapled) bags of leaves that we picked up from Dollar Tree all around the sides and top of the frame. Added a glitter turkey (also from Dollar Tree) to the bottom corner and free hand painted “Friendsgiving” across the bottom. Obviously you could paint Thanksgiving instead – free hand painting, using stencils, or even poster board stickers. All in, it cost us $6 to create not including the paint supplies I already had. But it was ENDLESS amounts of fun.
To give the kids a fun element, I created the Indian feather headbands. I bought sheets of brown felt, cut them into two inch strips (long ways), and cut a slit into each end to tie the ribbon. With ribbon, I tied a six inch piece into each slit to allow the headbands to be tied to specific sizes. I purchased a $5 pack of card stock paper from Walmart with a specific set of colors (there were many options, I went with red, yellow, orange, green, and blue) then I put them in my printer and printed a feather template onto them. The template was simple, with straight lines, and had six per sheet which cut down on my cutting time. It took me about 30 minutes to complete. Then I took one feather of each of the three colors I printed, positioned them together, and glued them onto the strip of brown felt. All in, this was about a $10 project and the kids enjoyed wearing them.
It was a great day spent with some amazing friends, way too much food, lots of toddlers running around, and drinks flowing. My favorite kind of day!
I hope these tips, tricks, recipes, decor ideas, crafts, etc. help you some way!
Happy Thanksgiving Eve all!
xoxo K
