Hosting Friendsgiving

Friendsgiving is a fun twist on the Thanksgiving holiday. It's a time to get together with your friends, enjoy yummy food and just enjoy some relaxing together whether friends are in town or about to travel to visit people over the holidays.

Each year we host a Friendsgiving for my husband's office, he has the best team and we are so thankful for them. This year we did a dinner, and instead of stressing over a turkey we ordered Chipotle catering, which was a hit! That way I could focus more on the desserts and decor... because... priorities. 🙂

Looking for more hosting inspiration?

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Planning a Menu

If you're going to provide all the food for your guests, I recommend catering if possible or at least catering some parts of the event. If you can't, try to think of dishes that keep warm easily. Honestly, the point of Friendsgiving is to celebrate the people you love, so as long as there's something to eat it's normally a hit. I like to do non-traditional foods for Friendsgiving because usually we're hosting a week or two before the actual Thanksgiving holiday, and you really only need so much turkey and ham am I right?

Dessert

My favorite part was making a fun little dessert board! I grabbed several treats from Trader Joe's and Target along with alphabet letters and put them out for people to snack on.

Originally I wanted to do a cute smores board and firepit set up, but the forecast showed rain that day. We switched things up and ordered a seasonal Milk Bar cake, it was a big hit!

Decorations

Decorating for Friendsgiving is so much fun! You can go traditional or have fun with it. We used a balloon arch from Pulley Balloon Co., she is so talented! She hung one over our island where the food was being set up as a statement piece, and the other on our front window. I am obsessed with the streamers she used!

Each place setting got a real plate, but I did order 'nicer' fake utensils. Then instead of a runner I used cheap twin sheets from Amazon and folded them under! This saved like $40-$50 and I was able to pick the exact colors I wanted.

These candlestick holders were a nice neutral, and then I put flowers from Trader Joe's in each of the vases. I love that this set of amber vases came with several sizes and shapes.

Tips

• My best tip for hosting is to prep your space by setting out dishes of where food will be going. That way, the day of you can remember where you're wanting to put things and you know you have dishes as place markers.
• Borrow anything and everything you can to save some money- tables, chairs, tablecloths, dishes, etc. I got all my dishes several years ago from various thrift stores and keep them in a tote in my basement for when we host larger events. We used our dining table, a few folding tables and I borrowed chairs from my neighbors/friends. Mapping out the layout on a piece of scratch paper is really helpful too!

I hope this holiday season is full of joy and blessings!

xoxo,

Claire