Thankfully we had an enthusiastic group of about 20 friends who were ready to dig into delicious food and sip on some festive drinks with us this weekend!
I admittedly love everything about hosting Friendsgiving – from the party prep, to the cooking and recipe selection – it’s all so fun to put together and I had a great time cooking up a storm on Saturday afternoon before our guests arrived a little after 4 p.m.
We had plenty of drinks for everyone, including an assortment of beer (no Natty Light beer roulette this time), sparkling holiday sangria and mulled wine. I am such a sucker for mulled wine (I first fell in love with it during our SantaCon adventures in NYC) and the mulled wine was definitely the drink of choice during this year’s Friendsgiving party. I’ve been making Ina Garten’s recipe for a few years now but added a splash of maple syrup instead of honey this year and LOVED it. Also, to simplify things, rather than prep the mulled wine on the stovetop, I added everything to the crockpot on low about three hours before the party began. It’s amazing and the best mulled wine recipe I’ve found to date!
Most of our friends brought an appetizer, dessert or side dish to share and we had more than enough food for everyone.
I left out place cards and pens so everyone could write down the name of the dish they prepared to avoid any confusion. I made some of our favorite dishes to share, including my mom’s stuffing, sweet potato casserole, my mother-in-law’s amazing pineapple soufflé and cranberry sauce.
As usual, Ryan was in charge of the turkey and the turkey situation ended up being a little comical this year. Early last week, I received an email from Diestel offering to send us a Non-GMO USDA Certified Organic turkey. The turkey seemed wonderful (no artificial ingredients or preservatives, growth stimulants or hormones) and since we had yet to purchase a turkey, I quickly replied to say, “Yes, please! Thank you!”
Well, somehow I overlooked the fact that the turkey was actually already a fully-cooked, oven-roasted turkey. After we thawed it out, Ryan opened up the turkey, ready to doctor it up and do this thing only to realize it was already basically done for him… and done very well! All we had to do was put the turkey in the oven for just over an hour (we still rubbed the outside with olive oil, rosemary, garlic salt and pepper) and we had the most amazing turkey ready to serve to everyone without much effort at all.
In my opinion, the turkey is probably the thing I’m least excited about over Thanksgiving (I’m usually all about the sides), but everyone raved about the turkey this year. It was so, so good! (And the leftovers were just as tasty the next day.)
Aside from the delicious food, one of the highlights from Friendsgiving this year was all of the children in attendance… And the fact that we had two babysitters on hand! My mother-in-law actually gave me the idea to reach out to two babysitters to see if they would be interested in watching all of the kiddos in our upstairs bonus room so the parents could enjoy some adult conversation and eat uninterrupted. When I shared this idea with my girlfriends, everyone jumped at the suggestion! We outfitted the room with plenty of books and toys and paid two babysitters to watch the kids for a few hours. It was so great to be able to have conversations that weren’t choppy with our friends knowing our little ones were having fun together upstairs.
We still brought the kids down to eat and say hi, but it was nice to be able to relax a little bit more than usual with some of our favorite people!
And for the long-time PBF readers, you might recognize our Florida friend, Ben! He drove in town on Friday and spent the weekend with us. He’s been a Friendsgiving regular since the early years and it was so great to have him in town for our first North Carolina Friendsgiving, too!
(FYI, the sparkly star cupcake toppers and the Pehr table runner were from November’s PopSugar Must Have Box. The box arrived two days before our party and we loved the addition to our Friendsgiving spread! Thanks, PopSugar!)
Friendsgiving 2016 was so much fun and even though I probably took a record low number of photos and didn’t manage to capture a lot of the fun (or a single family photo!), we loved celebrating with friends we are so grateful to have in our lives!
And now I’m more than ready to celebrate Thanksgiving this Thursday with my family! Hooray for the holidays!
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I’m so excited for this week and the Holidays to official start. That is too funny about your turkey, but sounds like it made life a little easier and was still delicious. Turkey, stuffing, and all the desserts are my favorite part about dinner. Have a great week!
Yay for the holidays!!! Looks like you guys had a great spread!
We love friendsgiving! Just had our 5th celebration at our house this Saturday and it was so much fun. I love it for pretty much the same reasons you mentioned. Your babysitter idea is genius though – will have to try that out next year!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Looks like you thought of everything and put together a great Friendsgiving! It makes me so excited for Thanksgiving this week! We are due with our first child in the next 2 weeks so soaking up every moment and getting excited to see how holidays change going forward! 🙂
Ah!!!! So close!!! <3 Yay!
Love the idea of a babysitter at the party! I’m definitely looking into the turkey you had for future holiday celebrations!
What an amazing idea to get babysitters! I’m sure the kids had a blast playing and the adults got to enjoy themselves too!
Looks like a really great gathering! Aside from your friend from FL, did the guests already all know each other? I’d love have a Friendsgiving one year, but it would probably end up being one big hodgepodge. I worry about it being awkward, but I guess that’s good for meeting new people. 🙂 If yours is a hodgepodge, too, any tips for breaking the ice?
I totally get that! Most people knew at least one other person at the party with the exception of Ben and our new neighbors. Thankfully everyone is really welcoming and friendly! I tried to share something I thought people might have in common with the guests who didn’t know people as well (like I knew our neighbors moved from SC and another couple used to live there…) and I think that helps a bit!!
looks like such a great time! love the babysitter idea
I love the idea of a friendsgiving. We haven’t ever done one before, so I will have to try it next year. The mulled wine looks delicious. A good cocktail to bring to my family thanksgiving has been on my radar. I will take your advice and use Ina’s recipe with the addition of maple syrup. 🙂
Looks like a fun gathering with great food – what a great host you are! I need to try Ina’s mulled wine recipe – so, maple syrup over honey?
Yes!! I did it initially because I figured maple syrup would mix better in the crock pot (I thought honey might be too thick) and love it!
It looks like you guys had a fun day. The food looks amazing too! The mulled wine sounds amazing.
That such a great idea to have babysitters! I’m going to tuck that idea away for us. And I agree wth you, I like the turkey, but the sides are hard to beat. 🙂
Looks like you guys had a great time!
I’ve always wanted to host a friends giving but its hard when your friends live all over the country! I get to host thanksgiving though so it’s all again!
How fun! I love Friendsgiving!
We had Friendsgiving at a friends’ house this weekend as well, and it was so fun. Makes me want to host it next year! The guys deep fried the turkey, which is totally delicious. Looks like you had a great spread too, Julie!
You girls are so pretty and everyone looks so happy! I’m glad you had a great time (with great food)!
– Charmaine
http://charmainenyw.com
Looks fantastic! Would you mind sharing the Sangria recipe? Looking for one for Thanksgiving.
Sure!!! It was honestly a bit of a shortcut and SO easy… I just combined two bottles of Prosecco with two bottles of sparkling white grape juice and added fresh cranberries, rosemary and sliced red and green apples. SO easy! You can sweeten it up if you like (a lot of sangria calls for added sugar) but we loved it as-is!
I love the addition of the rosemary! Thank you. Hope y’all have a great holiday!
I had Friendsgiving this weekend too (our 20th! On the 20th). I love the idea of hiring a babysitter to look after the kids so the adults could enjoy time together. SUCH a great idea! We had little kids at our gathering too – one of whom was born just a couple days after Chase! I ate almost all sides yesterday, too, and hardly any turkey!
Like the person who replied just above me, we have had fried turkey several times (not this year, though), and me and my husband agreed that it’s the best turkey we’ve ever eaten in our lives! Fried turkey for the win!
Btw, one of our friends made this (super easy) corn casserole, and it was a HUGE hit with all the adults, and the little kids went absolutely NUTS for it! So I recommend it! Someone said it was necessary to use delmonte corn, but I’m a big fan of organic corn, but don’t know how that would turn out. Enjoy! Love the post!
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/13742/corn-casserole-iii/?internalSource=hub%20recipe&referringContentType=search%20results&clickId=cardslot%202
How wonderful! I’m hoping to be able to host a similar get-together with friends in the next couple of years! Gotta get through this wedding and organizing the house first!
what kind of store would carry star anise?
My local Whole Foods had it!
YES! This post just got me super excited and inspired to start the holiday season… Thank you! :))
That turkey looks amazing!! I also love the babysitter idea!
The babysitter idea is FANTASTIC! Why have I not thought of that before? Beautiful food, friends, and party!
Yay for friendsgiving. Though I didnt host, I put out the idea to my yogi friends and we got together on sunday. It was so nice to catch up. I love that babysitter idea for the future too.
What a great idea to put the mulled wine in the crock pot! And maple syrup? Sounds perfect. I’m using that idea for our holiday gatherings!
Ahh you’ve made friends with Jess and Tee! <3 I was in their wedding. Looks like a fantastic time!
Really!? So cool!!!! They are the sweetest couple! <3 We were just at Jess' house yesterday for a play date with Jack!
They really are! Jess is one of the kindest most genuine people I’ve ever known in my life. <3 So glad y'all got to know one another!
Which sparkling sangria recipe did you use? I’m in the market for one!
What sangria recipe did you use? Planning my Friendsgiving menu now! Thanks 🙂