Hosting This Year? Impress Your Guests with These Unique Friendsgiving Ideas!
by Brianna Allison
This article was written by The Zillennial Zine’s fall editorial intern Brianna Allison. Find her on Instagram at @ballison7. If you would like to share an article with The Zillennial, send us an email at thezillennialzine@gmail.com.
There are lots of us out there who go to multiple Thanksgiving dinners: mom’s side, dad’s side, your partner’s family thanksgiving, maybe even a step-parent’s thanksgiving… and, of course, you can’t forget about Friendsgiving!
All of these gatherings add up to eating a lot of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and corn. But, if you’re hosting Friendsgiving this year, then make it a unique one! Leave the traditional Thanksgiving meal for your family and try something new with your friends. We have some perfect ideas for you to impress your friends and have a unique Friendsgiving this year!
Get Takeout Instead
As I said, sometimes eating the same Thanksgiving meal gets old fast. And it can be a lot to prepare for guests. So instead of stressing out about how to cook the perfect turkey or worrying about if your friend remembered to bring a pie, get takeout!
Now, there are a few ways that you could go about this. You could all order an individual meal from one place (if you can all agree on it), you could order it family style and share different dishes, or you could ask everyone to bring their favorite meal from a restaurant they like, and all just eat together! That way, everyone is getting something that they like, you don’t have to spend hours in the kitchen cooking, and it’s easy to clean up!
Or Make It Brunch
If you’re not feeling the dinner vibe, then brunch is definitely the way to go. You can’t go wrong with some mimosas and chicken & waffles! Luckily, breakfast foods are pretty easy to make, so you could design your own menu with pancakes, chicken & waffles, scrambled eggs, little sandwiches, fruit and yogurt. Then, you’ll definitely need to have some mimosas and bloody marys because what’s brunch without one of those?
Are you not feeling like staying in? You can always make a reservation, and go out to your favorite brunch spot if you don’t want to worry about cooking! If you do that and don’t want the fun to end, then you can go back to someone’s house and chat some more, play games or watch movies. Brunch allows you to spend the whole day with your friends!
Just Do Snacks!
If planning a whole meal isn’t your thing, then just do snacks! It could be like a potluck but only with dips and finger foods. That way there isn’t a main course, side dishes, salad, and desserts. Instead, it’s just appetizers! Someone could bring buffalo chicken dip, someone makes little sandwich sliders, maybe there are pizza bagels or you could even have a charcuterie board and a butter board. And don’t forget to include sweet snacks like cannoli dip, cookies and cheesecake bites.
Everyone will find something they’ll love and can snack on it throughout the night. The best part? It also alleviates the pressure of having a full-on dinner party. (My family has been doing this for Christmas the past few years, and we all agree that it’s our favorite meal of the holiday season). So don’t knock it until you try it! Just make sure you have enough snacks because no one wants to leave a party hungry!
Make Signature Cocktails or Fishbowls
If you enjoy cooking with friends and don’t want to alter your traditional Thanksgiving meal, then consider adding some fun drinks to your menu! Your friends can make a signature cocktail, or you all can create fishbowls together at the party! Both of these have become big trends on TikTok recently.
So if you want to do the signature cocktail idea, you’ll first have to decide what you want the cocktail to be centered around. You could have them make a fall drink, a drink that describes their occupation, one that they feel describes themselves, they could make a drink that starts with the letter of the name or a specific color. Let your creativity flow here and decide on a theme together. Then, each guest comes with their drink ingredients, a name for their drink and decor for it if they want to be fancy and cute. Then, you take turns making and sipping on the drinks throughout the night.
If you’re thinking of doing the fishbowl idea, you’ll need some small fishbowls or small containers to put your drink in. You’ll also need a collection of different kinds and flavors of alcohol, juice, soft drinks, etc. to create the fishbowl that you want. You can even buy candy and or fun little straws to add in. Then, you all can sit down and make your drinks together! Now, be careful because this idea can be dangerous and result in lots of drunk friends staying the night at your house! So use responsibly.
If you don’t drink alcohol, don’t feel left out! Just make your own mocktail by using different flavoring syrups, juice, punches, soft drinks, etc.
Make it a Themed Party: Murder Mystery, PJ, Red Carpet and more
If you don’t want to have just an average Friendsgiving, then make it a themed party. There are sooo many different themes that you could do so pick one that is fun for your whole invite list and get creative!
One of my personal favorites is to make it a murder mystery party – I think that this would be so much fun! There are games that you could buy online or in-store to help you throw the perfect mystery dinner party. As the host, it will tell you decor, what to tell your guests and how to set everything up. You basically would be playing a real-life clue game! Now, who wouldn’t want to come to that Friendsgiving party?
If you’d rather go more casual, you can throw a PJ party! Who doesn’t love to be in their most comfortable pair of clothes with some of their favorite people eating amazing food? That sounds like heaven to me. You could make popcorn, watch movies, play games and pretend like you’re having a giant slumber party (which you can make happen if you want to!)
Or if you want to go the opposite direction of casual, you could have a red carpet-themed party! Each of your guests can dress to impress in their favorite gowns and suits. You could have a little photo booth moment like they’re being photographed by paparazzi. Maybe even have a portion of your party where you hand out little awards like “Most likely to…” or different superlatives. The guest could even give a little speech after winning if they feel inclined to do so. Feel famous and live glamorously for a night!
Now, the last theme idea doesn’t really have a name, at least I don’t think it does, so let me just explain. You and your friends pick a name, whether it’s someone in your friend group or any random name. For example, maybe you chose Michael. Now that you have a name, each guest comes dressed as a celebrity, character or cartoon whose name is Michael. So, someone could dress up like Michael Myers from Halloween, another comes as Michael Scott from The Office, one friend could be Michael Jackson, another one is Michael Phelps, someone could be Michael Jordan and the list goes on. It would be a lot of fun because each of your guests can really get creative with it! You can tell each other prior to the party, or it can be a surprise when everyone shows up. Then, you could film as each person comes in and make a little video to remember the night!
Play Lots Of Games
Now, I know this idea doesn’t seem too unique, but it can be depending on the games that you pick! And you can’t go wrong with games because everyone loves a good competition. I think that if you’re going to do a game night party, a tournament is the way to go because it adds to a regular game night. You can make the tournament whatever you want it to be – drinking Olympics, kickball, flag football, etc. Just make sure you go all out for it! Remember the Disney Channel games? Make it like that! Create teams and all wear the same color, have a bracket where you keep track of who wins and who loses, have a trophy and just have fun!
Another fun game idea that isn’t as involved is to have each guest create a Kahoot about themselves. The questions can include things about their childhood, family, college years, job, significant other, etc. For example, they could ask what their middle name is, when they started playing volleyball, how they got the scar on their forehead, where they got proposed to, etc. This is a fun way to see how well you know your friends and to learn new things about one another! Just decide how many questions you want them to come up with and have a screen or tv that you can project the Kahoot onto and play.
Sing Some Karaoke
Lastly, get yourself a karaoke machine and throw a concert for your friends! Everyone loves to sing, even if you’re bad at it. So put on some Britney Spears, bring your best dance moves and entertain your guests.
If you weren’t planning on having a Friendsgiving this year, I hope that I changed your mind! You can have one of the most fun and memorable parties by trying out some of these unique party ideas! Whether you try just one or combine a few of them, just get creative.
Are you going to try any of these unique Friendsgiving ideas, or do you have any to add to the list? Let us know in the comments below!