If you have been thinking about planning a Thanksgiving meal for you and your friends (aka Friendsgiving), you have probably found complications. Here are five tips to help you through your planning to ensure a great time with friends!
- Make Sure Everyone Has a Designated Item to Bring
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This is important because you don’t want Jack, Bob and Sally all showing up with mashed potatoes. Make sure someone is doing the turkey, a few people are doing sides and someone is on dessert duty. If you or one of your friends really can’t cook or doesn’t have a proper kitchen, you can always get some Bob Evans sides from Food Lion or already cooked food from places like Wegmans or Publix! Don’t feel bad for not being able or not wanting to cook, your friends will just be happy to see food!
- Accommodate for the Friends That Might Just Let You Down
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If you have a friend that can’t cook or will probably just straight up forget, don’t leave them in charge of the most important stuff, like the turkey. They could be the second dessert person, the drink bringer, or you could just ask them to chip in some cold hard cash to cover the price of the utensils and odds and inns that you will end up needing. Don’t give that friend any hate though, not everyone is good adulting.
- Have Something to do For When You Run Out of Conversation
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Eventually you will run out of conversation, so it’s good to have something to do after your big meal. My suggestion is to have a card game or something similar. Since you will (probably) have more people around than usual, break out something that is good for large groups like Cards Against Humanity or What Do You Meme. There is also a new game called New Phone, Who Dis that looks promising!
- Know Your Friends (And Their Allergies!)
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A lot of people are on diets like Keto, are vegetarian or vegan, or are just straight up allergic to things like gluten or dairy. Make sure you know if any of your friends need accomodations to your menu! The worst thing that you can do as a host is to serve things that your guests can’t eat.
- Make Sure You Have Enough Space
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If you live in a dorm, you have no space. If you have an apartment, you may have slightly more space but it’s probably still not enough. Luckily, though, most residences have either a community kitchen or a big room that you can use for hosting. For example, my apartment complex has a big room on the top floor with a kitchen and lots of tables and space. It also has a really nice view, which is a plus. Try to utilize these types of spaces so that you have plenty of room for cooking, eating and activities.
Friendsgiving should be a fun time of friendship and good food. I hope these tips help you to accomplish that!