A Lukewarm Love Letter About Friendsgiving
November 10th 2025
Friendsgiving is a fake, millennial, undersalted holiday that serves no worldly value. Yet, I’ve chosen it as my own. It’s communion. In my God-less, birthday-avoidant, Christmas-deposing household, I never understood the capacity people had to celebrate. Last year, however, in an attempt to challenge my belief system and myself, I decided to take Friendsgiving very seriously.
November 27th 2024
I’m sitting on the cool marble floor of my dining room across from my best friend, whom I’m upset with. Between us sits a bowl of semi-whipped cream. We pass it back and forth as we ready the topping for a pie.
Between the sloshing and the clanking of a whisk against a metal bowl, we gush over Trader Joe's Vanilla Bean Paste, and the upcoming Wicked movie. The bowl warms as we hate on the rowdy people in my math class who make my head hurt. An oven timer sounds, and a cake comes out slightly dry. When we finish, the cream has split into butter, but I’m no longer mad at her.
There's the clamoring of a carrom board from the corner of my living room, where a group of stinky boys congregate. I hobble around (and over) friends splayed on my mom’s favorite carpet with plates full of food, and I fear for my life as condensation rims on my coffee table.
A Jenga tower collapses, and my dog startles from his spot. He settles near the coffee table, resting against someone’s cargo pants. Soon after, a fork drops to and he’s just as surprised. My friend falls asleep in a ball on a couch, and I tuck her in with a fluffy cat blanket. Somehow, after a few minutes, the blanket ends up sprawled over a couple, who make up insidious backstories for each cat on the cotton. I feel the urge to wash it after everybody leaves.
Needing to keep myself distracted from the chaos ensuing in my living room, I switch gears and focus on to-go containers. I begin to pack the scattered leftovers of a Friendsgiving feast into brown paper boxes, which are probably going to sog. I stare at the eggplant parmesan I’d made for my vegetarian friends who end up filling up on Mac and Cheese and potatoes. A hand rests on my lower back and I’m guided into a quiet assembly line; suddenly, four sets of hands are carving ham, rationing brussels sprouts, and scraping aluminum pans wordlessly.
When it’s time for dessert, I empty the contents of my freezer, pies thawed and cake frosted. I still feel the pie dough under my nails. We quickly whip a second batch of cream (that I forgot to put sugar in) and slap it onto the pies. With the surgical precision of a chainsaw, those pies (which are a weird, often too gooey dessert) are hacked into by my friends, for whom dessert is apparently a contact sport.
In the final stretch, I pass new faces in the dining room corridor as people return their plates to the kitchen in a relay. The sticky note timeline on my kitchen wall has stopped adhering to the smooth tile, and I see my half-folded 3:00 AM planning fall onto the counter.
November 10th 2025
I researched and budgeted, and spent $12 on a can of pumpkin puree. I invited and matchmaked, and orchestrated plus 2s, 3s, and 4s to play cupid. I cooked and crashed out like the ratty-chef from The Bear, but I also ate and smiled with friends. I burnt a tray of vegetables, almost ripped my eyelashes out, and contracted an unbelievably uncoordinated array of oven rack burns, but still ended the night more content than I had been in a while.
I’d like to say it was because of the power of friendship, or the resulting satisfaction of a hard slog. Instead, I’m thankful for the ambiguity and comfort that Friendsgiving provides. There’s no prerequisite for the holiday, except the willingness to do something nice for the people you care about. There is no God but dairy. It’s a holiday that omits meaning, and often reason, to just celebrate.
No intention, just vibes. Friendsgiving is lukewarm, imperfect and unserious; I’m definitely hosting it again this year.