I love throwing a party or having people over for dinner. Here in Australia (where I am from BTW) we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving so I LOVE the idea of Friendsgiving. So many of my friends, especially my USA buddies who live here celebrate Friendsgiving. It can get overwhelming planning a party or dinner for people so we have come up with the below list for all your needs for the best Friendsgiving party ideas ever!
INVITES
Ok, let’s start with how you are going to invite your friends. I mean you could send a text but where is the fun in that! Invites don’t need to be hard or crazy expensive. We have created 2 invite options for your Friendsgiving Party.
Check out our list of Friendsgiving Party Invites Ideas!
Online Invitations
Online invites are the easiest and quickest way to invite your buddies over for Friendsgiving dinner. You can make the invites on Canva or even in Word and send it off within like 10mins. It just gives that boring old text or emails a little more love and excitement.
DIY Invitations
If you have time on your hands you can make your invites. It is up to you whether you go full old school and create them but hand or you can use the online invites you created and print them out. This way you can personalize them for your guest by handwriting their name. Maybe use a fancy pen or if you can calligraphy that would look cute too.
DECORATIONS
Now it’s time to get your house looking Friendsgiving festive! There are so many different ways you can decorate your house. You can decorate with a color scheme. You can use the fall colors or you could make it a winter wonderland type of theme. Whatever way you decide to go the below items are sure to impress all your party guests.
Check out our list of Friendsgiving Party Decoration Ideas!
Banners
I feel like a banner is a great idea for a statement decoration piece. You can make it any size that would suit your home. The best part is that there are so many different banner options you could put up. If you have a printer you can create your banner and get some string to link each letter together or you can use blue tac and stick it to the wall. If you are not feeling the homemade DYI vibe you can buy banners online. There are so many different styles, options, and sizes to suit anyone. We have linked some of our favorite Friendsgiving banners below.
Menu Printable's
This decoration is not necessary but it gives the dinner table a little something extra. You can create your menus and use the same theme you used on your invites and print them out yourself. If you don’t have a printer you could create a menu on Canva and go and print it off from your local Officeworks or print shop and print off 2 and have one at each end of the table.
Name Place Cards
I love place cards! They are so easy to create and you can write these up just before everyone arrives. All you need is white cardboard, a gold pen, and a steady hand. If you don’t have great handwriting you can always print them up. For a little something special you can print the names in black and then use a gold pen and go over the black. Trust me it will look super fancy, but super cheap.
Candles
Candles are a nice simple way to decorate and also create an atmosphere. The best thing with using candles is that you can spend heaps of money or go super cheap and then place them on a nice tray to fancy them up. I love candles that are smelly so you can really go on theme and purchase candles that have a cinnamon scent or pumpkin and vanilla.
Mini Pumpkins and Leaves
Pumpkins and fall leaves are a must. The best thing is you can go into the back yard or local park and get some leaves and from there you can leave them natural or you can spray paint them a pretty gold. This keeps the spending at a minimum. Of course, you can also go and buy some artificial leaves as well which you can get pretty cheap. Same with pumpkins. You can buy them from your local grocery store and you can spray them any color or you can leave them the beautiful color they are. Alternatively, you can pick up some fake pumpkins as well. So many options to choose from!
FOOD
What is a Friendsgiving Party without food! I love feeding people! That sounds weird but I love when I have people over and I can give them yummy food to eat. When I have people over I also make it family-style. I pick a bunch of dishes and then everyone can pick how much they want to eat. It is super easy to roast a chicken and create a salad so the below food options are just a little different to impress your guest with. Also, they are super simple and easy!
Check out our list of Friendsgiving Party Food Ideas!
Charcuterie Boards
Food Boards are so simple to create. My general rule when creating a food board is to think of the following items: dips, cheeses (soft & hard), crackers, nuts, fruits (dried or berries) deli meats, and then I always add something random like chocolate or pretty flowers, it depends on how I feel. I have a few different plating options as well. I bought these random black trays from Kmart years ago which I think are actually for ice and drinks but hey it made a great plate for food and it had handles so it was easy to carry to the table. You can buy a nice wooden board to use as well or another option I have is these white baking dishes. You could use anything to create a pretty charcuterie board.
Veggie Bake
Comfort food at its best! Most people like to make potato bakes which are awesome but I like to add more veggies into mine. You don’t need to go crazy with veggies in your bake. I use potato, pumpkin, sweet potato, and carrot. I lay them in layers like a lasagna. For an extra spice of yummy, I will add some bacon! Let us know if you would like this recipe.
Cob Loaf
When I was little every party I went to there was also a cob loaf. As I have gotten older no one makes these anymore. We had a BBQ at our house and I decided to make a cob loaf and it was a hit! These are so easy to make and you can throw your mixture into a bowl, mix it and put it into the cob, and place it in the oven. It is a really quick food item to prepare that your guests are going to love. Recipe coming soon 😉
Hopefully, these Friendsgiving party ideas will get you in the mood to plan your upcoming Friendsgiving party or dinner. If you need some ideas for drinks check out Mr. Consistent for some amazing cocktail mixes. They are to die for!
