I love Thanksgiving with family every year, but I’ve always thought it would be so fun to do Friendsgiving, and I talk about it doing it every year. This year we were able to do both!

We wanted it to be unique, and each of us friends had already done our traditional Thanksgiving dinners, so we were able to brainstorm different fun themes, and ended up settling on French cuisine as our inspiration for each course of the menu.

• Appetizer: charcuterie, french bread, fruit, and an array of cheeses, including Camembert and Brie

• Salad: Salade Lyonnaise

• Entree: Steak au Poivre with Ratatouille

• Dessert: Apple Galette

Instead of just getting together for the meal itself, we wanted to take the opportunity to spend the whole day cooking together, letting the kids play, and hanging out while we prepped the food. I’ve talked before about the TIMELINE of hosting a dinner, and even though the timeline looked a little different (since we did the cooking together), I still wanted to prepare some things early, to maximize our time spent together. I did this by designing the table setting the night before, thinking through the seating arrangements and doing the bulk of the assembly before friends arrived. You can see more about how I typically think through DESIGNING YOUR TABLE SETTING here.

We had two little ones with us at dinner so I set out some crayons and fun card stock as their place settings.

By the time we were able to connect everyone’s schedules to plan our Friendsgiving, it ended up being after Thanksgiving, which was the ideal Thanksgiving and Christmas blend. It was the perfect cozy wintery day to be inside cooking together, and listening to holiday music - we started with the newest PLAYLIST FOR THE HOLIDAYS, A JP Christmas Vol. III. If you’re looking for the right music to set the tone for your dinner party, you can check out the playlists I’ve put together all in one spot.

My favorite part of every meal is the opportunity to sit down together, all at once, and have conversation with family or friends. Whether we’re just updating each other on our days, or having serious conversation, or asking light-hearted and silly questions, I love the time that’s set aside to get to know each other just a little better. I’ve created a set of conversation starters you can download and print out here. For this meal, we used a fun set of cards called Which Would You Choose? which was so fun!

| Credits: Author & Photography - Jacintha Payne |