Your ultimate guide to pulling off the easiest and least-boring Friendsgiving ever
Here’s what to eat, drink, do, and say before (or in lieu of) going home to the fam.
Year after year, Thanksgiving brings us plane-, train-, or automobile-ing back home to a place that basically guarantees you’ll be harassed about your current dating status and subjected to the odors emitted by your Nana’s Shih Tzu. Though a holiday dedicated to homemade grub and not buying gifts seems pretty sweet, Thanksgiving with the family can take a lot out of a person.
Solution: Friendsgiving.
Whether you’re sticking around town for the entire long weekend or have a night to spare before you head home to your family, round up your buddies for a rollicking night of drinks, food, conversation, and tunes. And if you need some help pulling the event together, we’ve got you covered.
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A Facebook invitation is the easiest and most low-maintenance option (but could possibly lead to the most inaccurate number of RSVPs, since there’s always that one friend who responds “yes’’ to every event they’re invited to but then never shows up).
On Facebook, it’s easy to add people, but it’s also easy for those people to add people, so consider making the event private. The invite can also be the landing page for all your Friendsgiving info, like the host’s address, who’s bringing what dishes, and where you can share pictures after the fact. Just don’t forget to text that one person who refuses to have a Facebook.
Paperless Post gives the feel of personal invitations without the hassle of paper and postage stamps and the fear of any invites getting lost in the mail—plus, the site shows you when your friends opened their cards so you can keep track of who responds.
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There are a handful of free templates, and you can also upload your own design—a great way to put that art degree to work, right? Other invites cost “coins’’: Twenty coins cost $6, and most invites cost only a coin or two each. That’s worth it to inform your friends about your food coma-inducing Friendsgiving plans.
If you want to go even a step further, take a tip from the geniuses behind Ship Foliage and use what Mother Nature gave you for a customized and crafty invitation. For Thanksgiving, Ship Foliage (started by the same people behind Ship Snow Yo) created a special Thanksgiving card kit that includes “five authentic New England foliage leaves’’ along with cardstock. Lucky for us, we live in New England—you can glue some leaves on cardstock or use them as stamp and practice some “fake calligraphy.’’ Because you probably see your friends often, you won’t even have to splurge for postage. Hand the invites out in person and get everyone talking about what they’ll bring.
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The simplest way to make your apartment company-ready is just to make it clean. GQ has a guide for “how to clean your filthy bachelor pad in 30 minutes flat’’ so you don’t even have to wake up extra early to do so.
For some fall flair, buy a few gourds and mini pumpkins (they’re only 69 cents at Trader Joe’s) to scatter around your abode. Take any old piece of art from a thrift store and cover it in chalkboard paint to sketch a Friendsgiving welcome sign…which will probably be scribbled over by the end of the night, but that’s OK.
Or maybe you want to be known as the Martha Stewart of your friend group. To look like the ultimate adult, you have to have the table settings down:
3 ways to dress up your Thanksgiving table
Check out these three easy ways to make your Thanksgiving table more festive.
If you need extra space, pick up a card table and cover it with brown kraft paper. This way, you can bundle multiple decorations together: Instead of bothering with placemats, just draw them on, and use that fake calligraphy again to write your guests’ names as place settings. Make sure to set out enough markers so your friends can sign and doodle during dinner.
Fill candle votives with cranberries, acorns, or popcorn. Hand-paint onto leaves for a “grateful’’ garland, and mix together a stovetop potpourri so your guests are greeted with a holiday scent right when they walk in. For a final touch, print out your own leftover tags to attach to cardboard containers so your friends can take home food in style.
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For the ultimate amateur:
If you’re planning the kind of shindig where alcohol will be the main part of the show and the food is just there to soak it up, eschew the traditional Thanksgiving recipes and embrace the drunk-food theme.
Let’s be honest, no Allston apartment has the oven to handle a full home- cooked meal, so cut all the corners. Canned cranberry sauce? Sure! Microwaved mashed potatoes? Perfect. Actually, you can cook a whole Thanksgiving dinner in your microwave.
But, if you want to avoid blowing a fuse, supplement some home “cooked’’ dishes with some local options. Create an assemble-it-yourself sandwich bar: Grab fresh When Pigs Fly bread, pre-slice a pre-cooked turkey (available at supermarkets like Roche Brothers or Whole Foods), whip up a 15-minute tempeh turkey for your veg friends, and set out some canned cranberry sauce from your nearest Stop & Shop (all the better for stacking on a sandwich) with boxed versions of stuffing and mashed potatoes.
What’s better with sandwiches and beer than nachos? Here’s a Thanksgiving version that is meant for leftovers but should really be the star of the show.
Story continues after the gallery: Boston restaurants that are serving Thanksgiving dinner.
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For the eager intermediate:
If you want a more proper meal, the key to winning Friendsgiving is to divide and conquer —you can split up who’s in charge of what to get every classic side dish on your table and still ensure that your one friend who can’t even cook ramen can do something right. Make it a potluck and create a Google doc to ensure that multiple guests don’t bring the same dish. Ask any friends with dietary restrictions to bring food that fits their needs—you shouldn’t have to worry about keeping your oven vegetarian or gluten-free.
Pick up dessert (and help provide meals to ill and homebound people in Massachusetts) from Pie in the Sky, and suggest that friends grab any side (or even a smoked turkey!) they can’t handle from Redbones.
For the real pro:
If you really want to do Friendsgiving right in your tiny apartment kitchen and be in control of every part of the meal, you’ll have to gather all the appliances you can. While your “world’s simplest Thanksgiving turkey’’ is cooking in the oven, make stuffing in a rice cooker so you can set it and forget it, and slow cook scalloped potatoes. Run to a market like Russo’s to get veggies: Brussels sprouts are easy to roast, and asparagus can be sauteed right on the stovetop. For dessert, skip the oven all together and make this no-bake pumpkin cream pie (well, there is some baking for the crust, but you can also buy a premade one).
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You can use this as an opportunity to clean out all those bottles that have been hiding out in the back of your fridge. Grab any you can for a low effort way to have enough drinks for the night. But remember, the beauty of a bottle share is in the variety. So if you run to the supermarket, skip the 30-rack of PBR and see if you can try every single pumpkin beer instead. Or grab a bottle of Trader Joe’s Vintage Ale —only $4.99 for a 740 ml bottle. If beer isn’t everyone’s thing, a few people could bring wine, as well. There’s no shame in two buck chuck.
If you want something stronger, try a pre-mixed cocktail—but not those bucket-margaritas. You can keep it classy and still simple with Roxbury-based Bully Boy Distillery’s pre-mixed stuff. Their bottled Old Fashioned is all set to be poured over ice and consumed with a somewhat inflated sense of adulthood, even if you have no idea what a bitter actually is.
If you want to add another step (and hide the bottle so your guests are none the wiser), fill a pitcher with some Bully Boy’s Hub Punch (an aged rum infused with fruits and botanicals, named after an old Boston recipe that was popular in the 1800s), then add double that amount of ginger ale and soda water and a couple of lemon slices. You’ll be drinking put-together cocktails with barely any of the putting together.
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“The last thing you want to be doing is spending all your time in the act of preparing stuff, that’s not any fun at all,’’ said Will Thompson, beverage director at Yvonne’s in Downtown Crossing. “Punch is not a science. You can embellish however you want to.’’
Make the “oleo-saccharum,’’ the citrus-oil-and-sugar base, a day in advance. Take off the peels from lemons, oranges, or grapefruits and muddle with sugar (about 12 oz sugar to 8 lemons) and let sit overnight. At the same time, fill a baking pan or other container with water and freeze for a giant ice cube that won’t water down your concoction. Dissolve your oleo-saccharum with 12-16 oz lemon juice. Add the alcohol and a dilution of tea, sparking wine, or sparking cider for balance. Garnish, and you’re good to go.
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To really impress your friends—and use the rest of everyone’s harvest from their apple picking trips—make apple pie sangria. This recipe uses two bottles of white wine (any white table blend can work and will likely be the most affordable), five cups of apple cider, two cups of club soda, one cup of caramel vodka, four chopped apples, three chopped pears, and two cinnamon sticks. It’s like dessert and drinks all in one. You can’t mix this the morning of, though. Let it sit overnight for maximum fall flavor (and booze-infused apple slices).
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Food is obviously the most exciting part of the Thanksgiving season. But when the hours of cooking and minutes of eating are through, you might want some activities to keep you and your friends from slipping into a tryptophan coma.
Football and Thanksgiving are steeped in about as much tradition as Plymouth Rock. If you’ve got hand-eye-coordinated friends, find a park or deserted college campus nearby to play some touch football. Or let the professionals do their thing and watch the Panthers play the Cowboys at 4:30 p.m. on CBS from your living room couch.
Still not enough sports in your lives? Head to the TD Garden to watch the Bruins face off against the Rangers the day after Thanksgiving or the Celtics play the 76ers the day before. If you’re looking for a gentler expression of physicality, try to snag some tickets to the Boston Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker. Opening night is Friday, November 27.
If you and your squad are mentally prepared for this, hit up Newbury Street on Black Friday for bargains and bourgeois aggression. The Wrentham Outlets, Assembly Row, the Prudential Center shops, and the new Primark in Downtown Crossing will also be offering some worthwhile holiday season sales and incentives. Just please perfect the art of your elbow jab before you go.
Throughout the weekend, history buffs can book a spot on the Plimoth Plantation tour bus, which picks people up from Boston before taking them to Plymouth Rock, Mayflower II, and the home site of the Wampanoag tribe. For a slightly less interactive taste of the American past, hit up the Museum of Fine Arts or the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
If you don’t feel too guilty about doing this post-the roasted turkey you feasted on the day before, head to the Stone Zoo on Friday, November 27 when Zoolights 2015 kicks off. Stroll down twinkle-light-decorated paths through exhibits that house bald eagles, arctic foxes, and Canada lynx. There will even be reindeer roaming around that you can take pictures with so email mom a photo if she’s still sending holiday cards out.
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Just because you won’t be rubbing elbows with your wino Auntie Barbara this Thanksgiving doesn’t mean you won’t be lacking for conversation topics. Depending on the diameter of your social circle, there will probably be some unfamiliar faces at your Friendsgiving this year—in which case, Debra Fine, author of The Fine Art of Small Talk, can help prep your conversation game.
“Thanksgiving isn’t a war,’’ Fine said. “We’re all so lazy, we go into these functions without thinking about how we can be good conversationalists. Come prepared.’’
According to Fine, there are three go-to topics that will do well with just about any Friendsgiving crowd: movies, highlights of your year, and the question, “What’s keeping you busy?’’ Fine stresses that the open-endedness of asking what’s kept someone busy ensures an answer beyond the usual “yes’’ or “nothing much,’’ or “same stuff, different day.’’
In addition to those three golden conversation topics, Fine has a few other talking points.
If you’re a coed going to a exiled-students-soiree, go prepared with nuggets of information about an interesting article or study you’ve read recently. Discussing a class you’re taking that you unexpectedly love is another good option. And, knowing your age-group, there will be booze so the social lubricant of the masses should have you feeling chatty. Just don’t get too lubricated.
If you’re in the post-grad-pre-marital-baby-and-“bliss’’ bracket, talking about your rec soccer league or recent trips or owning a dog for the first time are all ways of keeping the conversation alive. Fine isn’t averse to talking politics, so long as one person isn’t speaking for more than four minutes at a time and (genuinely) solicits the opinions of others.
And for the “adults,’’ feel free to discuss recent travels, bucket-list goals as retirement approaches, and general cultural topics. But keep conversation about your kids to a minimum. Please.
“I’m a mother of four,’’ Fine said. “But when everyone starts talking about their kids, it’s like, no, stop it, this is boring. Catch up about them for five minutes, but then talk about something real.’’
So, children, don’t feel too bad that you’re skipping Thanksgiving with the family. If your parents are gabbing correctly, they’ll hardly miss you.
Brian Burns’s Thanksgiving birth story and more
Boston.com writer Brian Burns was born on Thanksgiving and so were some of his relatives. He also does a Thanksgiving rapid-fire round and names his top four dream guests.
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Sandwiched between Halloween and Christmas/New Year’s, Thanksgiving doesn’t get much holiday songs love. There’s no “Monster Mash’’ to soundtrack your spuds, no “Silent Night’’ to describe the turkey-induced-comas, no “Auld Lang Syne’’ to capture…whatever that song is about. But that doesn’t mean there’s a lack of playlist options for your upcoming Friendsgiving bash.
The first decision you’ll have to make is whether or not you want to get creative with a theme, the most obvious one being gratitude. And, no, this doesn’t mean you have to subject your guests to a six-hour loop of that “Thank U’’ Alanis Morissette song. You can bring in the funk with Sly and the Family Stone’s “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin),’’ ride the new wave with “Thank You for Sending Me an Angel’’ by The Talking Heads, or soundtrack your evening with “Thank Me Now’’ by our sad dad neighbor from the north, Drake. The thankful songs list goes on and on from there, but it might make for a tedious process and a random mix—in which case, ditch the appreciation and play to the dinner table crowd instead.
College-aged folks sticking around with friends for the holiday have, arguably, the most access to the millennial-est tracks around. And if you’re hanging out with the right people, most of your friends should know at least one person in a band. In which case, have them bring new EPs or links to Bandcamp accounts and have a very alt Thanksgiving.
With 2015 nearing its end, young professionals can finally put the hours they’ve spent on Pitchfork to good use by coming to Friendsgiving with their favorite album of the year. Depending on how many people you’ve invited, give each guest the chance to play the album that they’re most thankful for.
And for the slightly older adult Friendsgiving circuit, remind yourself that there’s no sound as sweet as the silence that would otherwise be filled by the voices of your in-laws. Give thanks.
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