The holiday season is officially in full swing, meaning tis the season for stuffing our faces and unbuttoning our pants at the dinner table.  With Thanksgiving less than two weeks away, the anticipation for homemade mashed potatoes and turkey is growing each day. Every year following Halloween, I find myself counting down the days until the final Thursday of November, until the day I can finally stuff my face with pumpkin pie.  This year though, I did not have to wait very long to have a slice of my favorite dessert. This is because my friends and I decided that we would have a Thanksgiving feast of our own: a friendsgiving.  

Over the past couple of years, I have been wanting to get together with a group of friends to have a Thanksgiving meal; after all, I am very thankful to have them in my life.  With this year being our last in high school, my friend Lainey and I decided that this year would be the year that this amazing idea would actually become a reality. We began planning and prepping for this event and everything fell into place last weekend when we all came together to celebrate our friendship.  Everyone brought their favorite holiday dish, allowing all of us to fill our plates with amazingly delicious food (I found myself having to go put on a pair of sweatpants in order get seconds).  

Though the food was amazing, the memories we made during friendsgiving are the only things that matter.  It allowed us to all gather in the same place, and to spend time together all at once; something that does not happen often due to all of our chaotic schedules.

“I go to Tabor, so I don’t see very many of my Reagan friends,” said Ashlyn Swink.  “Catching up with people I don’t normally get to see was a lot of fun.” 

Thanksgiving is usually a holiday that we tend to spend time with members of our family, but this get-together allowed us to share how thankful we are to have one another.  It allowed us to share our family traditions, with a group of close friends who mean the most to us. This evening was filled with jokes, laughter, amazing food, and memories that will last a lifetime. 

“It was a great way for friends to get together, eat food, have a great photo shoot, and endlessly laugh together,” said Lainey Willamson.  

Though it may be called friendsgiving, this gathering does not have to happen around Thanksgiving.  If you want to get together with your friends to celebrate friendship over a humongous feast, it can happen anytime of the year.  Having a gathering with your friends will bring you all closer, and is well-worth feeling like you are going to burst from eating so much food.  The memories we made last weekend, will last for the rest of our lives. We have already planned on having a friendsgiving next year, and the year after.  This is now a tradition that will bring all of us together, no matter how much distance is between us.