On the menu for Lilly Telfler’s Friendsgiving: a cheese tray appetizer followed by dino nuggets, baked mac and cheese, roasted asparagus, and roasted potatoes with a dessert of brownies. The food would be made and enjoyed in the kitchen of their dorm room at the University of North Carolina at Asheville and, despite the fact that the kitchen was limited (with only a stove, oven, and sink to speak of), Lilly was excited.
Friendsgiving as a holiday is exactly what it sounds like – a Thanksgiving dinner with your friends, usually hosted before everyone decamps to their hometowns for the holidays. The term ‘Friendsgiving’ was added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary in 2020 and the holiday seems to be gaining steam among young people. As we head into the holiday season, Teen Vogue talked to those celebrating the holiday about why they do it and what they’re serving. Happy Friendsgiving!
Lilly, 18, and six of their college friends dressed up for their Friendsgiving, even if it was only being held in the dorm kitchen. They wore party dresses and lipstick and each brought something to the table. The idea behind the event was simple: “we all love being together,” Lilly says. “I found my own little family [at college]. And I think it’s really important to celebrate that and celebrate our friendship.” The group of friends met while taking a seminar on Greek tragedies and bonded over the discussion-based class before taking a group road trip to Margaritaville and Buc-ees in Tennessee. When their car broke down in the middle of the trip, the group solidified further. They like to have regular “family dinners,” though Lilly says they mostly cook pasta in the dorm kitchen. If you walked in while they were preparing dinner, you would find “one oven mitt… and four people gathered around the stove trying to do things… and stuff on every single surface.” Friendsgiving dinner was a success for Lilly and their friends, and they even had enough leftover food to share with their roommates.
Of course, not everyone has close knit group — but that doesn't mean Friendsgiving is off the table. Anita Michaud, 24, started Dinner With Friends through Bumble BFF after she moved to New York from Michigan and was surprised by how difficult it was to meet new friends. Through the app — an offshoot of the dating app Bumble, but to connect people with potential friends — she says she invited people over and organized Dinner with Friends, which has become popular enough that it employs a lottery system to choose participants. At each dinner, she says, there’s a moment when the awkwardness of eating with strangers dissipates and the chemistry starts to take over and she can feel friendships forming. “It’s given me so much. I made some of my best friends in New York [through this],” she says. “I’ve cooked some really cool meals I never probably would have done otherwise.” And she has something planned for November: a Friendsgiving-themed Dinner with Friends event, though she says all the events feel like a Friendsgiving. “It happens every month,” she says. “This month we’re testing to see if a potluck approach [works].
Blair Mannis, 24, and Honor Pizkus, 23, are choosing a different theme for their Friendsgiving dinner: popular TikTok foods. The friends are cooking food from recipes that went viral on TikTok; Blair is in charge of the chamoy pickle, which she says she’s been “wanting to try for a while.” Honor is making freeze-dried Skittles. As for the main course, that will be the famous TikTok feta cheese pasta with tomatoes. “We were joking at first,” Blair says about the theme. “But then we decided to go with it.” And even though it's all slightly in jest, the reason for the holiday is something they’re holding close. This is the first year they’ve all been living in the same city since they were in a sorority in college together. “You can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your family,” Blair says. “There’s a lot of anxiety around the holidays when you put your entire family in a room and you don’t know what’s going to happen. So having a Friendsgiving is a way to make the holiday fun.”
