Friendsgiving 2012 was the perfect kickoff to the holiday season!
![Friendsgiving_thumb[4]](https://i2.wp.com/pbfingers.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Friendsgiving_thumb4.jpg "Friendsgiving_thumb[4]")
After the Central Florida Hero Rush obstacle course race on Saturday morning, Ryan and I made it home around noon, quickly showered and got to work in the kitchen.
Ryan was on turkey duty and said he was just going to “wing it.” (<—You know I love puns.) I wasn’t so sure about his nonchalant attitude toward the shining star of our Friendsgiving meal, but my focus was on the sides, so I let him do his thing and didn’t worry about it.
Ryan ended up rubbing the outside of the turkey with salt and stuffing it with an onion, a stick of butter, several sliced carrots and a celery stalk. He then placed the 20-pound turkey breast-side down in a roasting pan, covered it and let it cook at 350 degrees for right around six hours.
I’m telling you about his technique because it turned out fantastic. The turkey looked pretty horrendous when it came out of the oven (it split apart and I immediately thought of the turkey in Christmas Vacation) but it was so moist and flavorful. His turkey got rave reviews!
Ryan is officially on turkey-duty for every Thanksgiving dinner we prepare in the future.
Our friends started to arrive at our house around 2 p.m.
It was so great to see my friend Minda and her boyfriend, Clark. Minda and I were suitemates in college and I haven’t seen her since a fun BBQ in May since she lives two hours away.
Dru, Carrie and their smiley baby Noah drove in town from Orlando and we celebrated Noah’s very first Thanksgiving dinner together! He is such an expressive little boy!
My sister and her boyfriend, Ross, were the first to arrive at our house and prepared a fantastic Mediterranean hummus appetizer dip for everyone to snack on before dinner.
We also popped open a bottle of blueberry wine to sip on as we cooked that I really enjoyed.
When Ben and Ashleigh arrived, they came bearing gifts! Ben recently launched a new sunglasses company called Faded Days and brought fun sunglasses for everyone as a Thanksgiving gift.
Clearly the girls had fun picking out funky colored glasses.
(Sadie still needs to learn that mooning the camera is unacceptable. I apologize.)
Our friends Will and Alex also drove in town and brought their dog Goldie and we loved seeing them! We actually had four dogs at Friendsgiving and they all had a blast. It was fun to watch them together and I’m pretty sure Noah was in heaven. I’m not sure what he loved more: Dogs or standing. It was adorable to watch Noah’s huge smile as he held onto the coffee table and just stood there watching the dogs. Apparently standing is a new thing for him and he’s awfully excited about it!
Dinner came together right around 6 p.m. and we had quite the feast.
I filled my plate with a bit of everything and went back for seconds of stuffing, sweet potato casserole and pineapple soufflé.
And we cannot forget about dessert!
Pumpkin pie, Carrie’s pumpkin blondies, Leslie’s s’mores bars and chocolate-covered Oreos rounded out the spread. I had a bit of everything and went to bed full and happy.
Friendsgiving 2012 was a success!
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Friendsgiving is a very cute idea! All the food looks delish!
How fun! All the food looked fabulous as well. Both you and Courtney with your friends’ Thanksgiving meals convinced me to do our own this coming weekend! I’m excited for it. I might just have to copy Ryan’s turkey method – it sounds so easy!
We did a friendsgiving when I lived in New York, but our kitchen was WAAAY too small to cook everything so we got it all from Boston Market .. embarrassing. This looked 100x better 🙂
Look at that feast! I find that the uglist turkeys always taste the best!
friendsgiving sounds like a blast and the food looks delicious!! love the sunglasses!
Sounds like a successful evening! The food looks delicious 🙂 Now I’m really excited for Thanksgiving food.
Looks like you had a blast!! Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and all your talk about a friendsgiving celebration inspired my friends and I to have our own! I hope it turns out as well!
The food looks delicious! What a great idea! It’s so nice to take those moments to appreciate the people in our lives 🙂
This post gets me pumped for Thanksgiving! I can’t wait!
Looks like so much fun!!! I definitely want to do something like this- Especially with Hurricane Sandy- I think it could lift everyones spirits right now! 🙂
Everything looks yum…looks like a blast!
Second year in a row that I am so jealous of your friendsgiving, great food and it looked like a lot of fun! And I love the sunglasses, how nice of him to being those for everyone!
Looks like you guys had such a good time! I really love the pumpkin label holder things (I’m very good with technical terminology 😉 )…they’re SO cute!
I love the idea of Friendsgiving! You actually inspired me to set up one with my book club in a few weeks. And thanks for sharing your turkey story… I feel like the bird is always the hardest part, so my husband and I usually end up ordering a smoked turkey. Maybe I’ll try my own this year.
Breast-side down is the way to go! It’s not pretty, but it makes a delicious bird, which is the goal anyway!
I put this on Instagram, I think, but I’m sooo jealous of your roasting pan! Putting it on my wedding registry immediately! Love it!
Oh wow what a feast! I love the friendsgiving idea. Definitely keeping that in mind for next year. 🙂
And Sadie mooning the camera is hilarious!!
Looks so fun! But do you have a beautiful people only rule for your group of friends? Haha!
This looks so fun! You’re very lucky with a good group of friends you can get together for Friendsgiving! All my friends are eons away!
Looks like such a fun time! Love those sunglasses!
Aww it looks like you had such a fun time! I love your orange dress! And I am jealous that you are still able to wear dresses in Novemeber. It was 36 degrees this morning in Boston :-O…definitely not dress weather!
This looks like so much fun!
Looks like a DELICIOUS and amazing time! I definitely need to start up a Friendsgiving tradition. Maybe next year! 🙂
Blueberry Wine?! That sounds divine and perfect for sipping through cooking Thanksgiving dinner! You spread looks gorgeous and my friends and I are totally having a Friendsgiving too!
LOVE this idea!! I can’t wait til we move so we can do something similar… Nothing better than getting to enjoy a Thanksgiving meal twice 🙂
Your Friendsgiving meal looks delicious!
PS- the blog is backwards on my browser… maybe backwards isn’t the word, but the text of the posts have moved to the left of the screen and past blog posts have moved to the right. Is this something new or just my computer? lol 🙂
So much fun! We’ll be having our Friendsgiving on Thanksgiving since so many of us stay put here in Alaska! Any chance you’d share the recipe for pineapple souffle? It sounds fabulous!
Friendsgiving is possibly my favorite thanksgiving festivity. I’ve been doing it with a group of friends since high school … This year will be our 7th year!! It’s a great excuse for everyone to get together. Some I talk to weekly, some only once a year, but its a great reminder of what a blessing a good group of friends are.
Looked like the perfect day! (And yumm)
How old is baby Noah? My son is doing the same things so they must be around the same age, so fun! And wowza they had a baby fast after the wedding, LOL!
This looks so fun! We actually just got invited to a Friendsgiving this weekend (must be a Florida thing!) so I’m now on the prowl for some recipes for stuff to take. I think you’re going to be my inspiration, haha.
Such a great idea and looks like so much fun!
I would love to start a Friendsgiving tradition, you guys looked like you had a blast! My husband and I seem to take on the same roles in the kitchen… I prepare the sides and the man is in charge of the turkey. He has always done the breast down method and over the years he has learned that if you do it breast down and then flip the bird over for the last hour to hour and a half or so, baste, and rub butter on it then you get an incredibly moist bird that also has a nice brown color and crispy skin. Hope you have a great Thanksgiving!
This is such a great idea, I love that you do a Friendsgiving! Looks like your dishes turned out great, and kudos to Ryan for the winning turkey! Those darn birds are so easy to screw up…
Mmmmm everything sounds so great! And I’m so impressed with Ryan’s skills! And I’ve actually never seen those nice turkey pans before~it loooks like it’d make a really moist turkey. And God bless you guys for opening up your house, so fun! 😀
omg absolutely LOVE Leslie’s boots!!! Where did she get them?
What is up with the Romney ad?? Empowering women through action?? I wouldn’t call ending funding for Planned Parenthood an action which will be empowering women. Disgraceful
Omigosh I love that you have started this fun tradition and everything looks so delicious!! Please post links to recipes soon! And that’s so cool that your friend started a sunglasses company- I love those glasses!
What an awesome friendsgiving! The food all looks delicious and it sounds like you guys had a blast!
Looks like a great time, Julie! And that blueberry wine sounds intriguing; I’ve had blueberry beer, but never wine.
What a fabulous idea! It gets me so excited for the real T-day with my whole fam!
What a success our friendsgiving was! My fiance and I really debated having a friendsgiving this year, but we get married the first weekend in December and decided it might be too much to do this year, even if we had friends bring sides and such. I can’t wait until next year to host it!!!
I don’t think I’ve ever had or heard of blueberry wine…sounds good… I think?
How fun!! It looks as though it turned out amazing!
I totally want to start doing a Friendsgiving- it just looks like so much fun!!
Looks delicious! Love your sister’s boots 🙂
The Sadie mooning comment got me laughing so hard I spit water on my computer!
Can you post the recipe to that pineapple souffle? I’m very intrigued!!
Looks amazing!!! Sad I can’t make it to these things 🙁 Good job planning another yet sucessful get together – love you!!
Friendsgiving….something I need to introduce to Ireland along with Thanksgiving! Pineapple souffle?Intrigued!
Friendsgiving is so fun and I love that you guys have that tradition. Everything looks so delicious. Interesting about the turkey roasting. Moist and flavorful always wins with turkey for me.
I see I cropped pic so we couldn’t see u spelled potato w an e. too bad u missed the misspelling of Brussel sprouts. For a food blogger and someone who labels herself a writer you sure made some elementary mistakes.