With the beginning of a long holiday season just around the corner, many people are preparing for their Thanksgiving festivities. This can range from prepping meals, arranging family reunions, or going out of town. A new and increasingly popular get-together is emerging, known as “Friendsgiving”, and it may lead to a decrease in family-based and traditional Thanksgivings..
Friendsgiving is a Thanksgiving celebration with friends instead of family. This get-together typically takes place during the week of Thanksgiving, where groups of friends bring a variety of food and celebrate together. There are many appeals that a Friendsgiving has to teenagers over a traditional Thanksgiving family dinner. One specific attraction is that celebrating with a ‘chosen family’, such as a group of friends you consider family, rather than a biological family, can be less stressful and more comfortable. It allows a person to feel included in a community and grow a stronger connection that they might have never found with their biological family. This enhances the true meaning of Thanksgiving by finding a ‘chosen family’ to give your thanks to.
Thanksgiving is usually hard to coordinate. With family away from home, living in different states, and being caught up in work, it can be an overwhelming task to try and get everyone together to celebrate Thanksgiving. Friendsgiving is much easier to coordinate since students have similar Thanksgiving breaks and daily schedules. Friendsgiving can also be significantly cheaper, with everyone contributing equally with food, rather than it becoming a last-minute burden for the Thanksgiving host family.
One of my favorite parts of Friendsgiving is the aesthetic side of the celebration that traditional Thanksgiving doesn’t usually have. Getting together in cute, fall sweaters and jeans with your friends provides great photo opportunities that you usually miss out on during a traditional Thanksgiving family dinner. With the influence of Social Media everywhere in our world, Gen Z girls in particular can feel pressured to get cute photos to make their feed more pleasing to the eye, including me.
Although I do believe traditional Thanksgivings will always be a widely celebrated celebration, the rise of Friendsgivings everywhere is becoming bigger and more prominent by the year. Celebrating a holiday based around gratitude and being thankful with friends and family feels like the best way to get the most out of Thanksgiving.