81 Fun Facts About Friendsgiving

Commentators often tie Friendsgiving's rise to which idea of kinship, long common in LGBTQ+ communities?

Chosen family means friends who fill a relative's place, which is why the meal caught on with LGBTQ+ people estranged from parents and with city transplants far from home.

Which reality show's 2011 episode 'Gobblefellas' helped carry the word 'Friendsgiving' to a national audience?

The Real Housewives of New Jersey made a Friendsgiving dinner a plot point in the same year an ad campaign took up the word, and dictionary editors saw its use climb steadily from 2012.

A Friendsgiving meal is usually organised as which kind of get-together?

A potluck spreads the cooking across the guests, which is why the host of a Friendsgiving rarely has to roast everything alone.

Which dictionary added 'Friendsgiving' in January 2020, dating its first known use to 2007?

Merriam-Webster had tracked the word since it surfaced on Twitter and the message board Usenet, and added it 13 years later once it was clear the term was here to stay.

Like 'brunch' and 'motel', the word 'Friendsgiving' is an example of what?

A portmanteau packs two words into one; this one spread fast, dictionary editors say, because 'friends' plus 'Thanksgiving' needs no explaining.

Which liqueur brand's 2011 ad campaign helped push the word 'Friendsgiving' into the mainstream?

Baileys ran ads saying Friendsgiving 'is all about being with your other family', and dictionary editors date the word's leap to national prominence to that year.

For most celebrants, how does Friendsgiving relate to the family Thanksgiving meal?

For most people it is a second, separate gathering on top of the family meal, a shift from the early substitute version; a minority now skip the family dinner altogether.

Which Founding Father called the turkey 'a much more respectable bird' than the bald eagle?

Benjamin Franklin wrote the line in 1784, in a letter addressed to his daughter that mocked a society of ex-officers; he never proposed the turkey as a national symbol.

Which 1973 animated special has been called 'perhaps an early example of Friendsgiving'?

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving has Peppermint Patty invite herself and two friends over, so Snoopy dishes up toast, popcorn, pretzels and jelly beans, and she fumes that it isn't a real dinner.

Because Friendsgiving guests are forgiving, some cooks use the meal as a chance to do what before the family holiday?

Test-drive new recipes on friends first, since pre-holiday Friendsgivings are a free-for-all while meals on Thanksgiving Day itself usually replicate the classic dinner.

Arlo Guthrie's talking-blues classic 'Alice's Restaurant Massacree' runs roughly how long?

About 18 minutes long, it takes up a whole album side, and rock stations turned playing it in full into a once-a-year Thanksgiving ritual.

What nickname did critics give FDR's 1939 Thanksgiving, moved a week earlier for Christmas shopping?

Critics dubbed the relocated holiday 'Franksgiving'. November 1939 had five Thursdays, the last falling on the 30th, which alarmed retailers; the change split the states, some keeping the old date.

Think-tank writer Michael Hendrix argued Friendsgiving grew partly out of which trend among millennials?

Delayed household formation was his reason: with marriage and children coming later, he wrote, friends fill the seats a growing family once took at the table.

Green bean casserole was created in 1955 by Dorcas Reilly while working for which food maker?

Dorcas Reilly devised it at Campbell's in Camden, New Jersey, as an everyday side called Green Bean Bake; it became a Thanksgiving fixture only in the 1960s, once the recipe went on the can's label.

In 'Alice's Restaurant', what Thanksgiving 1965 errand for Alice and Ray lands Arlo Guthrie in trouble?

Taking their garbage to the dump failed because it was closed for Thanksgiving, so he tipped the load down a hillside and was fined for littering; in the song, that record gets him rejected by the draft board.

Which company's first TV Dinner, in 1953, was a turkey meal with cornbread stuffing?

Swanson's dinner has a famous origin story: salesman Gerry Thomas said it used up a huge surplus of unsold Thanksgiving turkey, though the Swanson heirs dispute his account.

Like Friendsgiving, which friends-first holiday began on Parks and Recreation in 2010?

Galentine's Day was Leslie Knope's party for her women friends; real life copied it, and in 2023 the president of the Massachusetts Senate threw one for more than 100 of the state's influential women.

Where did the Bidens host their Friendsgiving-style turkey dinner in 2022?

A Marine base in North Carolina, Cherry Point, hosted about 400 service members and relatives, with the president and first lady serving the food themselves.

What did the giant character balloons replace when they joined the Macy's Thanksgiving parade in 1927?

Live zoo animals, among them bears, elephants and camels borrowed from the Central Park Zoo, walked the first parades; their roars are said to have scared children along the route.

Which 2 Broke Girls star appears with Malin Åkerman in Nicol Paone's 2020 comedy Friendsgiving?

Kat Dennings plays Abby, whose quiet holiday for two with her best friend swells into a crowded, chaotic dinner party; critics were unkind, with a 19% Rotten Tomatoes score.

The Thanksgiving dinner that inspired 'Alice's Restaurant' was hosted by Alice and Ray Brock in what kind of home?

A former church in Massachusetts was the Brocks' home, where they fed their friends that Thanksgiving; Arlo Guthrie later bought the building and turned it into the Guthrie Center.

Which NFL team has hosted a game on Thanksgiving Day every year since 1945?

The Detroit Lions have hosted on Thanksgiving every year since 1945; owner George A. Richards began the tradition in 1934 to draw attention to his new team, and it paused only from 1939 to 1944.

Canada's Thanksgiving is held on which day each year?

Second Monday in October has been the rule since 1957; from 1921 the feast shared a November Monday with Armistice Day, until the two were split in 1931 to give veterans a day of their own.

Which turkey brand has run a Turkey Talk-Line for panicked Thanksgiving cooks since 1981?

Butterball has staffed the hotline every November since, and by 2013 the firm had spotted a second market, filing to trademark the phrase 'Butterball Friendsgiving'.

Cajun chef Paul Prudhomme is generally credited with introducing which three-bird holiday dish?

Turducken, a chicken inside a duck inside a turkey, became a national craze after broadcaster John Madden tore into one with his bare hands during NFL telecasts.

Besides groups of friends, who else now commonly throws a Friendsgiving as a holiday party?

Coworkers have made the office a common site for Friendsgiving; one participant told The Atlantic it relieves year-end stress and works as 'a teaser for the main event'.

What role does the second turkey play at a modern White House turkey pardon?

An alternate waits in the wings in case the star bird turns unruly or falls ill, as happened in 2008 when Pumpkin stood in for a sick Pecan; both birds are spared.

Defending Friendsgiving from its critics, Reason magazine called it 'cultural flourishing, not cultural' what?

'Cultural decay' was the charge Reason rejected; a harsher critic, Malcolm Harris, had called the meal 'a propaganda weapon used by the ruling class' to excuse stagnant wages.

How long did the Pilgrims' 1621 harvest celebration, the mythologised first Thanksgiving, last?

Edward Winslow's account says the colonists and about ninety Wampanoag 'entertained and feasted' for three days. Seventeenth-century writers treated it as a harvest celebration; Plymouth's first civil day of thanksgiving came in 1623.

Which 1987 John Hughes Thanksgiving comedy starred Steve Martin and John Candy?

Planes, Trains and Automobiles strands Martin's uptight ad man with Candy's chatty shower-curtain-ring salesman after a snowstorm diverts their flight, two days before Thanksgiving.

In 'The One with All the Thanksgivings', which Friends character gets his head stuck in a raw turkey?

Joey put the raw turkey on his head in a 1992 flashback to scare Chandler and got it stuck; the same episode reveals Monica accidentally severed Chandler's toe, and ends with Chandler blurting out that he loves her.

Which amino acid in turkey is often blamed, wrongly, for the nap after Thanksgiving dinner?

Tryptophan gets the blame, yet turkey has about as much as other meats; the drowsiness more likely comes from a big meal heavy in carbohydrates, helped along by the drinks.

In the Friends Thanksgiving episode 'The One Where Ross Got High', Rachel's English trifle accidentally gets a layer of what?

Two cookbook pages stuck together, so the trifle got a layer of beef, peas and onions, making half of Rachel's dessert shepherd's pie; the friends pretend to like it, though one of them genuinely does.

Whose long campaign of editorials persuaded Abraham Lincoln to proclaim a national Thanksgiving in 1863?

Sarah Josepha Hale, who also wrote 'Mary Had a Little Lamb', spent years sending editorials and letters to one president after another before Lincoln finally agreed.

Which president made the National Thanksgiving Turkey pardon a permanent tradition?

George H. W. Bush made it official in 1989, his first year, telling the crowd the bird had 'a presidential pardon as of right now' and would live out its days on a children's farm.

Which meatless holiday roast did Oregon's Turtle Island Foods introduce in 1995?

Tofurky began as a tofu roast with tempeh 'drumsticks', dreamed up by Seth Tibbott after years of failing to sell America on tempeh; shops were wary, but buyers snapped it up.

By 2013, which etiquette authority had begun fielding questions about how to behave at a Friendsgiving?

By 2013 the Emily Post Institute was answering questions about Friendsgiving etiquette; Google searches for the term were negligible before 2012 and climbed steeply from 2013 onward.

Critic Pete Wells argued in 2019 that Friendsgiving how-to guides existed because organisers lacked what?

Hosting experience was thin, Wells wrote, because people in their 20s and 30s took up the meal first; his headline called Friendsgiving 'just as fraught as Thanksgiving'.

After two years of rival Thanksgiving dates, who fixed the holiday on the fourth Thursday of November in 1941?

Congress nearly chose the last Thursday: the House bill said so, and the Senate changed it to the fourth to cover Novembers with five Thursdays before Roosevelt signed it that December.

Which Wampanoag sachem brought about ninety men to the Pilgrims' 1621 harvest feast?

Massasoit, the Wampanoag sachem who had made a treaty with Plymouth that spring, arrived with some ninety men; Edward Winslow's account says they went out and brought back five deer for the feast.

In Cheers' 'Thanksgiving Orphans', the gang's holiday dinner at Carla's degenerates into what?

A food fight breaks out after a long wait for a turkey that refuses to cook; Diane orders everyone to stop at once, and the throwing promptly starts up again.

In Cheers' 'Thanksgiving Orphans', which regular's never-seen wife finally turns up, her face hidden at once?

Norm's wife Vera arrives in the closing seconds with her face covered, so viewers still never see her; she tells him to fetch his coat and he answers, 'Yes, dear.'

In How I Met Your Mother's 'Slapsgiving', what song does Marshall sing after slapping Barney?

Marshall's song 'You Just Got Slapped' follows a slap that Lily, as Slap Bet Commissioner, had banned for the day until she relented with three seconds left on his countdown clock.

Lena Waithe's 'Thanksgiving' Emmy made her the first Black woman to win which category?

Waithe's 2017 Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series, shared with Aziz Ansari, made her the first Black woman to win the category; the episode drew on her own coming-out story.

Who plays Denise's mother Catherine in Master of None's 'Thanksgiving' episode?

Angela Bassett plays Catherine, Denise's mother, in an episode that hops between Thanksgivings from 1995 to 2017 as Catherine slowly comes to accept her daughter's girlfriend Michelle.

In Buffy's 'Pangs', Buffy cooks Thanksgiving dinner for her friends at whose apartment?

Giles's apartment hosts the dinner because Buffy's mother is out of town; a starving Spike ends up tied to a chair there, dodging arrows when vengeful spirits attack.

In 'Bart vs. Thanksgiving', Bart accidentally destroys what Lisa made for the table?

Lisa's centerpiece, a tribute to women trailblazers, ends up in the fireplace; Bart runs away, sells his blood with Homer's ID, lands in a soup-kitchen line and finally apologises from the roof.

In Bob's Burgers' 'An Indecent Thanksgiving Proposal', what does Bob name his turkey?

Lance is the name Bob gives the bird; left alone in his landlord's kitchen with a bottle of absinthe, he ends up talking to it as his only friend at the party.

In Friends, what did Ross and Monica call their banned annual touch football game?

The Geller Bowl ended with its sixth edition, when Monica broke Ross's nose and their parents banned the siblings from playing football again.

In Friends' 'The One with the Football', what is the 'Geller Cup' that Ross and Monica fight over?

The Geller Cup is a troll doll on a 2x4; it was hurled into a lake when the game was banned, and Monica fished it out while Ross was in the emergency room.

In 'The One with Rachel's Other Sister', who would get Emma if Ross and Rachel died?

Monica and Chandler were the chosen guardians; Amy, played by Christina Applegate in an Emmy-winning guest turn, had assumed the baby would be hers, and the row that follows costs Monica one of her wedding plates.

In WKRP's turkey-drop episode, Mr. Carlson swears he thought turkeys could do what?

Mr. Carlson's closing line is 'As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly'; live birds were dropped from a helicopter over a mall, and Les Nessman's horrified play-by-play borrows 'Oh, the humanity!' from the Hindenburg broadcast.

Adam Sandler debuted 'The Thanksgiving Song' on SNL in a duet with which Update anchor?

Kevin Nealon introduced it as the first of a yearly run of holiday songs by different cast members; a year later it was Sandler again, back on Update singing as Bruce Springsteen.

Which comedy star produced the 2020 film Friendsgiving, which features his wife Christine Taylor?

Ben Stiller teamed up again with Malin Åkerman, his co-star in The Heartbreak Kid, to produce it; she also plays one of the two friends whose quiet holiday swells into a chaotic dinner party.

Which 2003 indie film stars Katie Holmes as a young woman cooking Thanksgiving dinner for her estranged family?

Pieces of April was shot for about $300,000 after a $7 million version fell through; her oven dies, so she goes door to door for a working one while her dying mother drives in.

Who directed Home for the Holidays (1995), Holly Hunter's dysfunctional Thanksgiving?

Jodie Foster's second film as director sends Holly Hunter's newly fired single mother home to a reunion that ends with her brother and brother-in-law brawling on the front lawn.

Which 1997 drama follows two Connecticut families through a 1973 Thanksgiving weekend of affairs and a 'key party'?

The Ice Storm, Ang Lee's film of Rick Moody's novel, sets its wife-swapping party in New Canaan on the night a winter storm glazes the town in ice, with fatal results.

In Eli Roth's 2023 slasher Thanksgiving, the killer wears a mask of which Plymouth figure?

John Carver, the colony's first governor, lends the masked killer his face; the murders avenge a deadly Black Friday stampede at a Plymouth superstore a year earlier.

Libby's canned pumpkin comes from the Dickinson variety, a close relative of which supermarket squash?

Butternut squash is the same species as the tan, oblong Dickinson, grown around Morton, Illinois, so cooks still argue over whether America's pie filling is pumpkin or squash.

In Addams Family Values (1993), the summer camp's first-Thanksgiving play casts Wednesday as which historical figure?

Wednesday is cast as Pocahontas, refuses, is sent to the 'Harmony Hut' for forced viewing of wholesome TV, then leads the outcast campers in a revolt mid-play.

Which Christmas classic filmed its opening scenes live at the real 1946 Macy's Thanksgiving parade?

Miracle on 34th Street got one take per shot at the real parade, Maureen O'Hara recalled; the studio then opened its Christmas film in June, on posters that kept Santa in the background.

The first inflatable balloon in the Macy's parade, in 1927, was which cartoon character?

Felix the Cat came first, a silent-film star turned giant balloon; Mickey Mouse, who seems the obvious pick, did not join the parade until 1934.

What did Macy's do with its helium balloons at the end of the 1928 parade?

Macy's released them into the sky on purpose and paid a reward for each one recovered; in 1931 a pilot sheared the head off a dragon balloon with his wingtip and collected $25.

Detroit's America's Thanksgiving Parade was launched in the 1920s by which store?

Hudson's started the parade in 1924 after its display director, Charles Wendel, saw Toronto's Eaton's Santa Claus Parade; the Big Head Corps of papier-mache marchers is unique to Detroit.

The oldest US Thanksgiving parade, first held in 1920, was created by which store?

Gimbels sent out 50 staff, 15 cars and a fireman dressed as Santa, who finished by climbing a ladder into the store's toy department; the parade outlived the store, which closed in 1986.

NBC's post-parade Thanksgiving dog telecast was inspired by which 2000 film?

NBC executive Jon Miller pitched the National Dog Show after seeing Christopher Guest's mockumentary Best in Show (2000), betting viewers would root for their own breed, an 'alma mater effect'; it first aired after the parade in 2002.

Buffalo's Thanksgiving turkey trot, first run in 1896, is a few months older than which famous race?

The Boston Marathon began in April 1897, five months after Buffalo's YMCA sent its first runners out; the 8K has been run every Thanksgiving since, through two world wars and two pandemics.

Which city's police coined 'Black Friday' for the post-Thanksgiving shopping crowds?

Philadelphia police used 'Black Friday' for the crowds and traffic that swamped the city before the Army-Navy game; merchants hated the gloomy label, and a 1961 push to rename it 'Big Friday' went nowhere.

Small Business Saturday, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, was created in 2010 by whom?

American Express launched Small Business Saturday on 27 November 2010 and holds it as a registered trademark; that first year it bought Facebook advertising credits and handed them to its small-merchant customers.

Which president first joked about granting his Thanksgiving turkey a 'pardon', before the ritual became official?

Ronald Reagan made the quip in 1987 to dodge questions about pardoning Oliver North over Iran-Contra; the bird, Charlie, was already bound for a petting zoo.

Which president sent his Thanksgiving turkey back to the farm in 1963, remarking that he would let it grow?

John F. Kennedy spared the bird, which wore a sign reading 'Good Eating, Mr. President', on 19 November 1963, the week of his assassination; newspapers called it a pardon, a word he never used.

Which president pardoned turkeys named Mac and Cheese, Abe and Honest, and Tater and Tot?

Barack Obama pardoned those pairs in 2014, 2015 and 2016, and his White House let the public vote online for the star bird; Cheese beat Mac to the title.

Which state's legislature named pecan pie its official state pie in 2013?

Texas had honoured the pecan long before: Governor James Hogg asked that a pecan tree be planted at his grave, and the feeling that stirred helped make it the state tree in 1919.

'Merrythought' was the English name, around 1600, for which bone still fought over at Thanksgiving?

The wishbone was a 'merrythought' from about 1600, a name traditionally put down to the happy thoughts of whoever was about to snap it; 'wishbone' isn't recorded until 1860.

Tony Sarg, who designed the first giant balloons for the Macy's parade, was best known in the 1920s as what?

A puppeteer hailed as America's 'Puppet Master', Sarg first built Macy's a Christmas window of marionettes parading on moving belts, then scaled his characters up into balloons.

The word 'turkey' was first used in English for which other bird, one linked with the country Turkey?

The guineafowl was tied to Turkey, either shipped through it or thought to come from there; English speakers then passed the name to the American bird, which the French linked to India: 'dinde', from d'Inde.

After Thomas Hunt kidnapped him in 1614, Squanto was sold into slavery in which country?

Hunt sold Squanto and other captives in Málaga, Spain, where local friars are said to have ransomed them; Squanto later reached England and sailed home with an expedition in 1619, finding his Patuxet village emptied by disease.

Which of the first four presidents refused to proclaim any national days of thanksgiving while in office?

Thomas Jefferson held that calling the nation to prayer or thanks was no business of a president, a stand rooted in his belief in separating church and state; Madison revived the practice.

Lincoln's 1863 national Thanksgiving proclamation was actually written by whom?

William H. Seward, the secretary of state, drafted it for Lincoln's signature; a year later the handwritten original was sold to raise money for Union troops.

Which NFL team has hosted a Thanksgiving game almost every year since 1966, after volunteering for the television slot?

The Dallas Cowboys were a losing young team when president Tex Schramm offered to host in return for a national audience every year; they have skipped only 1975 and 1977 since.

Where did the Mayflower first drop anchor in November 1620, weeks before its passengers settled at Plymouth?

Cape Cod was the wrong place: the ship's licence covered land no farther north than the Hudson River, so the men among its 102 passengers signed the Mayflower Compact before anyone went ashore.