Friendsgiving 2013 was a success!
We had friends drive in town from all over Florida on Saturday to celebrate Thanksgiving, drink mulled wine and apple cider sangria and eat delicious food. It was a wonderful day and I loved spending time with some of our best friends, including several of my closest girlfriends from college, some of Ryan’s fraternity brothers and their families and my sister and her fiancé.
Leslie and Ross were the first to arrive.
They drove in town from Jacksonville in the late morning to help with some last-minute prep work before everyone else showed up in the early afternoon.
As always, Ryan and Ross were on turkey duty, so they immediately got to work and prepared our 20+ pound turkey for roasting.
They used the same off-the-cuff technique they used last year and the turkey received rave reviews again!
Sadie made sure to thank Ross for his hard work with lots of hugs.
She was in heaven throughout our Friendsgiving party since two of her favorite guys came in town to celebrate with us. Sadie is obsessed with Ross and our friend Dru.
She soaks up all the lovin’ she can when these two are around!
Right before everyone arrived, I prepped two festive drinks: Apple cider sangria and mulled wine. I made the apple cider sangria by loosely following Jess’ recipe. I combined a bottle of Riesling, a bottle of sparkling moscato, one cup of ginger brandy, five cups of apple cider, one cup of club soda, three chopped pears and two chopped Honeycrisp apples. It was delicious!
The mulled wine was my favorite drink and was really easy to make! I followed Gimme Some Oven’s recipe and then transferred the hot wine into our crockpot set on low so it remained hot throughout our party.
Once our friends arrived, we took a break from kitchen prep work and chatted with everyone for a while before it was time to put the finishing touches on our Friendsgiving feast.
The Fagan’s:
It was so great to meet Dru and Carrie’s almost two-month-old baby, Aiden!
He was the sweetest! Within two minutes of holding any baby, I feel like I somehow make them cry, but Aiden was such a sweet and calm little guy. He let me hold him for a long time and just looked around without squirming or crying. What an adorable little boy!
We also got to see Aiden’s big brother Noah again!
Remember when he was just a baby!?
Once everyone arrived, it was time to eat!
On our menu:
- Turkey
- Mashed potatoes and gravy
- Stuffing
- Glazed carrots
- Cranberry sauce
- Pineapple soufflé
- Quinoa salad with pecans and raspberries
- Rosemary and parmesan roasted Brussels sprouts
- Green bean casserole
- Fruit salad
- Peas
- Sweet potato casserole
I filled my plate and went back for seconds of stuffing, sweet potato casserole and fruit salad.
After dinner it was time for a white elephant gift exchange!
Everyone brought a gift that they already had at home and wrapped it up to give away at the party. We drew numbers to see who would pick first and after the first person chose a gift, everyone after them had the option to open a new gift or steal one of the gifts that was already opened. Each gift could only be stolen a maximum of two times.
With so many newlyweds in the group, re-gifted ridiculous wedding presents were quite popular and gave all of us quite a bit of laughs.
I initially opened up a new set of Tupperware which was a great gift, but it immediately got stolen.
In the end, I ended up with a new pair of slipper socks from WalMart, The Princess Bride movie (Ryan was psyched about this one) and a box of Reese’s Pieces. I’d say I did quite well!
After our White Elephant gift exchange, it was time for dessert.
We had cookies, a peanut butter chocolate cheesecake, pumpkin pie and apple pie.
It was a wonderful Friendsgiving and I’m so grateful to our friends who made the drive to Ocala to celebrate with us!
I can’t wait to do it all again next year!
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I so badly want to see Leslie’s ring close up!
OMG! I thought I was the only one! lol 😀 Thanks Ashley!!…I love how happy they look…such a beautiful couple! 🙂
How fun! And seriously that dessert table looks incredible!
Everything looks delish and fun!!
These are such beautiful pictures!! You look adorable with the baby *wink wink*
Friendsgivings are the best! We always have Thanks-mas since everyone is town. We have Thankgsiving on Thursday and Christmas on Friday. We always do White Elephant too! One year, someone brought 3 scratch-off tickets. I had the one that was a $500 dollar winner and it was stolen from me! I was a bit upset after the next person grabbed it and was a real winner!!! (; Hahaha! It was still so much fun and a memory I will never forget!
that belt is so cute!!
That peanut butter chocolate cheesecake looks delicious!! Do you have a recipe? 🙂
Looks like a great day! and delicious 😉
How fun! I love reading your friendsgiving recaps each year 🙂 Such a great idea!
Such a wonderful idea! I like seeing you holding a baby! e
Looks like such a fun time with friends! I love everyone’s outfit, too!
such a cute idea! I want to do this next year! All of you ladies look gorgeous!!
Looks like such a fun time with friends- great way to celebrate!
I LOVE LOVE LOVE your outfit and your hair. That Fagans family pic of you, Ryan, and Sadie is too adorable!
I think I spy some baby cabbages…and holy crap that cheesecake looks amazing. Are those full Reese’s cups?!
So funny that Ryan was excited about The Princess Bride. There’s a cool pizza place near me that plays that movie in the bar sometimes (along with other classics like The Goonies!)
I love the little tags of what each food item is on the buffet table – are those special clips that attach to food dishes? Or just paper clips?
I love your tradition of Friendsgiving. My husband and I have tossed around a few ideas for a festive friendsgiving. Maybe we dont have the traditional Thanksgiving food and we do something different like a taco bar. I think it is great you did your gift exchange already! How fun!
Looks like a ton of fun. I loved your little pears labeled with all of the dishes names, super cute!
-Lauren
Do you use a curling iron or curlers for your hair? I want to get my hair to look that way for a wedding I have coming up!
Thanks!
Looks like a success! We are doing our friendsgiving on the 8th and I am making my first whole bird! Can’t wait!
Your dog is hilarious. It makes me want to get one just like her.
I love the friendsgiving concept! Too bad we don’t celebrate thanksgiving in Aus- everything looked delicious as well. Omg that pb choc pie- amazing!!!
Question. Why does Ross have three different shirts on within the course of a 4 hour event? We need answers.
Hahaha! Cooking casualties. Basically he got stains on two of them!
Oh my gosh! I can’t believe I just stumbled upon this post after being a reader for 2 years!! The photos are beautiful! What kind of camera were you using?! (the food looks amazing as usual too!)