Admit it. You told your mom you can’t get home for Thanksgiving because of roads, weather, finances, work, you became a vegetarian (insert excuse here). The truth of the matter is, vacation and funds are precious and you just can’t motivate yourself to spend either or both listening to your mother and grandmother bicker about how to make the sweet potatoes or watching all the men crowd around the football game with a hand stuffed down their pants. You’re all about the Friendsgiving this year. Friendsgivings rock for a million reasons. Here are five of them.
No relatives!
Aw, we’re just kidding. Kind of. We love our families, right? We just don’t necessarily love all of them in the same place at the same time. Family holidays are important — a veritable cornerstone of American culture. But is it that important that you attend every year? Don’t you appreciate everyone a bit better when you haven’t seen them for a long time (a really long time in some cases)? Friendsgivings are by invitation only. This means only the people you truly want to nosh with will be in attendance.
No traveling!
Friendsgivings rock because you don’t have to take two days of vacation to get back and forth from Thanksgiving dinner. In fact, if you host Friendsgiving you need only travel from your bedroom to your kitchen. No vacation time or sweet moolah needed for that!
Little-to-no cooking!
Here’s a typical menu for a Friendsgiving: Oh wait, there isn’t one! That is the genius behind Friendsgiving. You can make a menu and assign a dish to each friend, or you can just ask each friend to bring a favorite Thanksgiving dish. Yeah, you might end up with twelve versions of green bean casserole, but who cares? You didn’t have to make it, and that’s all that matters.
Diminished awkwardness!
Imagine a family holiday where you don’t get grilled about when you’re going to find a husband, get a better job, move to a better house, have kids, do something with your hair, drive a nicer car and/or move back to your hometown. At Friendsgiving, there is no forced dialogue with people you really don’t know. Friends are just that — your friends. Friendsgiving is blessedly free of the heightened expectations that sometimes accompany family interactions.
Post-turkey festivities your way!
The bird has been consumed and everyone is sitting around stroking their food babies. What now? Everyone retires to the living room to listen to the men rattle off sports stats while Grandma belly-aches about how sub-par all the side dishes were? Not this year. Whether you throw lap blankets at everyone and curl up around a funny movie or play a game is up to you. It’s fun to take a break from forced and mandated social functions and put your own spin on them.
More on Friendsgiving
Throw a leftover potluck
Friendsgiving favorites: Dishes to pass and share
How to start your own Friendsgiving
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