Friendsgiving has amassed its own following, commonly celebrated during the weeks preceding Thanksgiving. Since Thanksgiving is a holiday largely reserved for family and close loved ones, people have chosen to create a quasi-holiday in the name of friendship.
I am a big proponent of celebrating Friendsgiving. Just as you get the chance to see long lost relatives and other family members over Thanksgiving, that same opportunity is afforded during Friendsgiving to catch up with friends. Both holiday celebrations serve as a time where everyone can take a step back from the business of life, enjoy the company of people you’re normally not around, and reflect on shared memories and adventures had together.
I am reminded of the saying, ‘you can’t choose your family, but you can choose your friends,’ when I think of Friendsgiving. Although Thanksgiving is nice and all, family drama runs the risk of interrupting those four course meals and gratitude sharing. Some relatives prefer the bottle over the food, and others just plainly don’t get along with each other. Whatever the situation, Thanksgiving can create more unwanted anxiety and stress than necessary. In my experiences, I find Friendsgiving much more enjoyable than Thanksgiving.
Some may consider this a hot take, but I prefer to be in the comfort of my friends rather than with some family members who initiate quarrels without any rhyme or reason. I have had one too many Thanksgivings end with me wishing I wasn’t there in the first place; I have yet to have a similar experience with Friendsgiving.
Unfortunately, I did not have the chance to participate in a Friendsgiving this year due to friends’ busy schedules and personal lives. Nonetheless, if I had celebrated Friendsgiving this year, I would have wanted to try out that trend where everyone brings a dish representative of their culture. Instead of eating your traditional, American Thanksgiving foods, people could try new foods and perhaps even learn something about their friends’ backgrounds.
Because my family is mostly Italian, I know exactly what I would bring to the table— my father’s famous meatballs and rigatoni dish. I wonder what my friends would have brought; I am sure it would surprise and excite me to know more about them and their cultures. Friendsgiving should be a place where people are able to explore past their comfort zones, surrounded by the people that love and care for them most.
If you haven’t experienced Friendsgiving, I highly recommend you bring it up with your friends next year. It’s important to set time aside and appreciate one another.
Personally, my friends and I are getting increasingly busier with school, internships, jobs, and relationships. Sooner or later, there will come a time when my friends and I can’t talk the way we do now, see each other as often, or even come together for Friendsgiving. After graduation, who knows where we will all live and work in relation to one another. Nevertheless, I am hopeful that we will make time for each other in the future, especially for occasions such as this one.
I have heard grown adults tell me time and time again to enjoy what you have now as a budding adult with less responsibilities. As emerging college graduates, we need to enjoy every moment we have with our friends; they won’t always be there every step of the way thereafter.
All in all, even if you couldn’t have a Friendsgiving this year, don’t forget to acknowledge your gratitude for the people you hold most dear. To quote the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, “Life moves by fast; if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
