7 Ways to Throw a Student ‘Friendsgiving’ Party This Year

Students all over the US eagerly await the last Thursday in November, a.k.a. Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks for all the good things in our lives with the people we love.  Whether you’re spending Thanksgiving at home or abroad this year, it’s sure to be a time of happiness and reflection. 

A rapidly growing trend, but significantly lesser known, is Friendsgiving. Friendsgiving is a Thanksgiving spent with friends, where you share huge amounts of food and have a good laugh. This is a perfect way for US students studying abroad to introduce Thanksgiving to their non-US friends. For more tips on how to celebrate Thanksgiving while studying abroad, click here. 

Read on as we give you seven tips on how to throw a great student Friendsgiving party this year…

The first step to throwing any great party is to make a list of people to invite; otherwise you’ll just be sat at home alone with a turkey (not very festive). Invite people from different friendship groups (course mates, friends from societies, old roommates etc.) – they’ll soon bond over copious amounts of food and drink. 

The next step is to send out invitations to your guests. To do this, you can either send paper invites, or create a Facebook  event. A Facebook event makes it easy to keep track of who is and isn’t coming and provides a platform for you to give updated information to your guests.

Paper invitations tend to give a more personal touch – particularly if you handmake them. However if making invitations from scratch really isn’t for you, you can always buy them online. Make a note of any responses you receive from your guests, so that you can keep track of numbers.

Unless your friends are all atrocious cooks, a fun way to cut down on the amount of cooking you have to do (as well as reducing the amount you spend), is to ask all of your friends to bring a side dish to your party. This is also a fun way to try out a wide range of dishes.

However, it’s the host’s job to make the main dish – traditionally a turkey or a chicken, although this depends on your guest’s tastes. If you have any guests with allergies or any vegetarians or vegans, remember to cater to their dietary requirements. This may sound like a lot of work, but you can probably get your housemates to help with this bit (if you ask nicely).

As with most events, the more food, the merrier, so don’t worry about making too much, as you can always give it to guests to take back with them or eat the leftovers throughout the week.