Thanksgiving is always the fourth Thursday of November. But many Americans don't wait that long to share a fall feast with their loved ones — that is, if they celebrate Friendsgiving.
Friendsgiving is exactly what it sounds like: A gathering close to the date of Thanksgiving, starring many of its starchy staples, usually served potluck-style, with friends instead of relatives.
Think fewer dinner-table political debates, less travel time, turkey optional (more on that later).
"There are your friends, and there's Thanksgiving," says Emily Brewster, a senior editor at Merriam-Webster. "It's a great example of a word that is just an excellent candidate for adoption as soon as someone thought of it."
This installment of NPR's Word of the Week series takes a look at where Friendsgiving comes from, why it stuck around and how to celebrate it.
A new name for an old tradition
Of course, people have been celebrating Thanksgiving with friends for centuries.
The concept of Friendsgiving has long permeated pop culture, from 1973's A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (in which an overburdened Snoopy cooks for the gang after they invite themselves over) to Friends, which went on the air in 1994 and included Thanksgiving plotlines in each of its 10 seasons.
But the proper noun only came along relatively recently.
Merriam-Webster started tracking "Friendsgiving" in 2007, after it appeared in posts on what was then Twitter and the early message board Usenet. The word's obvious meaning and accessible pronunciation helped it catch on quickly, Brewster says.
"Friendsgiving" popped up in lifestyle blogs and news articles over the years before hitting it big in 2011. That year, it was both the focus of a Bailey's Irish Cream ad campaign and a major plot point in a Real Housewives of New Jersey episode (titled "Gobblefellas").
Google searches for "Friendsgiving" spiked that November, and increased every year for the rest of the decade.
"All a word like this really needs is to just have more of a presence in the culture, and then it gets adopted into the language very quickly," Brewster says.
Merriam-Webster added "Friendsgiving" to its dictionary in 2020, 13 years after its first known use. While Brewster wasn't involved in that decision, she says "it was clear that it met our criteria."
"We had been seeing these examples of it for a few years, and … it looked like it wasn't going to go anywhere," Brewster adds.
The made-up holiday has inspired chain restaurant deals and numerous hosting guides, and even counted a sitting president among its participants in 2023. There are no official statistics on how many Americans celebrate Friendsgiving, but online surveys from recent years suggest numbers could be as high as 20%.
Brewster wonders whether we are seeing more Friendsgiving gatherings at least in part because there is now a name for them. It doesn't hurt that it's a catchy "blend word," which she says Americans especially get a kick out of (see: "Barbenheimer" or "Galentine's Day").
"I'm curious … if the existence of the word has somehow generated more of this kind of socializing," she adds. "I think words do have that power, that they can actually influence action."
"Friendsgiving" isn't one-size-fits-all
Lizzie Post, the co-president of the Emily Post Institute, says the etiquette-focused organization started getting questions about Friendsgiving do's and don'ts around the time the word entered the lexicon.
"They were questions along the lines of: 'Is it OK to host Friendsgiving and go to your family Thanksgiving?' 'Can you only do Friendsgiving if your family isn't around and you can't travel to them?' " she explains.
The answer turned out to be a resounding yes. Many of those who celebrate Friendsgiving typically do so in addition to their family Thanksgiving, not instead of it.
"I think Friendsgiving is a nice way to be able to do both," says Emily Stephenson, a cookbook author whose work includes The Friendsgiving Handbook, published in 2019.
Stephenson says she has been hosting Friendsgiving — even though she never called it by that name — for about two decades, starting when she attended college abroad.
"It kind of implies … a younger person who's maybe doing things that's not going to be super traditional," she says. "And I do think part of what's implied in Friendsgiving is maybe it being the first time you host."
To Stephenson, younger generations' embrace of Friendsgiving makes perfect sense, particularly after the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic. Throwing a dinner party can be a rare and special experience, especially for 20-something apartment dwellers who are potentially many years away from hosting a family Thanksgiving.
And there's not one right way to do it, considering the holiday is made-up and the real thing is just around the corner. Stephenson says that hopefully takes some pressure off.
"If you are hosting and a turkey stresses you out, you don't need to make turkey," she adds.
Post says these days, most of the questions the institute gets about Friendsgiving revolve around the etiquette of potlucks. The most important thing, she says, is to make clear who is responsible for what.
"I think that as people, we really value spending time with one another, taking a break from the everyday," Post says. "And whether that means eating off of paper plates … in front of a football game on the couch with a big buffet behind us, or whether that's a formally set table, matters not. It's the gathering that makes the big difference."
Tips for your next Friendsgiving
That said, there are things both hosts and guests should keep in mind to help make Friendsgiving as easy as pie. Here's some of the best advice we got from Post and Stephenson:
For hosts:
- Do ask people if they have allergies or dietary restrictions beforehand.
- Do keep track of who is bringing what, whether you assign specific dishes or leave guests to fill out a shared spreadsheet. And if someone shows up with something that wasn't on the list, serve it anyway.
- Do take responsibility for the main dish — but it doesn't have to be a full turkey. Stephenson suggests preparing a less time-consuming turkey leg or breast, or skipping the bird altogether in favor of something like a shepherd's pie, savory galette or lasagna.
- Do make it easier for out-of-town guests by tasking them with store-bought contributions, like drinks, napkins or a premade crudité platter.
- Do give guests key details in advance, like what time the meal will actually be served (especially on a weekend) and a dress code if you're planning a more formal event.
- Don't be afraid to ask guests to help out. Post recalls that when her mom used to host some two dozen Thanksgiving guests, she would ask people to not only bring a dish but sign up for a job — from setting out place cards to lighting candles to checking who wants ice cream with their pie. "Some people faint when I say this," Post laughs. "But … little tasks like that, when spread out over the whole group, not only make it a little bit even more of a communal experience, but they help ease the burden on the host."
- Do try to send guests home with leftovers of the dish they brought. "Just because they've brought it to your house doesn't automatically make it yours," Post says. If they don't want it, transfer it into another container so you can clean their original dish and send it home with them.
For guests:
- Do inform the host of any dietary restrictions (if they don't ask), but do so "with an offer to bring something that meets your needs," Post says.
- Don't arrive empty-handed. "I don't think there's many rules for being a guest besides … don't make soup," Stephenson says, since it adds another round of dishes to clean.
- Do the heavy lifting before you leave the house. Since kitchen space will be limited, it's best to bring a dish that is ready to eat, even if it needs a few minutes in the oven first.
- Don't show up expecting leftovers, though of course it's nice if you end up with some.
- Do remember to thank your host — verbally is fine, Post says. If your friends are into group activities, you may well get a chance to share what you're thankful for anyway.
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