Time to break out your Thanksgiving pants.
Rachel Green in Friends might’ve said Thanksgiving is a time you “should not want to be together, together,” but it’s actually the perfect time to reflect on the love you have for your family and friends around a table full of food. This holiday season, you can spice up your gathering by hosting a Friends-themed Friendsgiving so that you actually, maybe, want to be together around the table. However, before you invite everyone over, you’ll want to make sure you have the perfect Central Perk details to make it a feast to remember.
Throughout all 10 Thanksgiving episodes of Friends, each character has their own iconic moments and inevitable mess-ups. How many times have we seen Monica lose it while trying to cook a multi-course meal in that tiny kitchen? Plus, who can forget when Rachel brings her “traditional English trifle”and Ross claims that it “tastes like feet?” While Chandler and Phoebe think Thanksgiving is “needless-turkey-murder day,” you can always count on Joey to show up with his eatin’ pants on, ready to get down with some stuffing. Between the turkey wearing sunglasses and the hilarious hijinks, there are so many ways to host a Friends-themed Friendsgiving.
First, you’ll want to put up a few decorations and set a table that would make Monica proud. You’ll also want to tell your friends to wear their stretchy pants, because you aren’t fooling around with the menu. To prep for your own Friendsgiving dinner inspired by Friends, you’ll want to be sure your food isn’t “what evil must taste like.” There’ll be something for everyone, whether it’s a mockolate pie, grilled cheeses, or a healthy heap of tater tots.
Check out these 10 ideas for Friends-inspired Thanksgiving attire, decorations, and dishes to help you celebrate the ones you love most.
Set the mood right from the start with some super fun Friends-themed decorations. The blogger behind Kara’s Party Ideas DIY’ed these iconic Friends images and quotes out of colored paper, then glued them onto long craft sticks to create great photo props. If crafting isn’t your thing, you could always put a snappy Friends quote on your letter board at home, or even decorate your table with Friends apartment details like these coasters from Etsy.
While Monica loves to make sure everything is perfect, you don’t have to pull out your fine china for this Thanksgiving gathering. Grab some of these Central Perk paper plates and cups to instantly pull the Friends theme together. Plus, clean-up will be a breeze, making it so you can get to the foosball table in a snap.
As Joey Tribbiani would say when arriving to a Friendsgiving feast, “These are my Thanksgiving pants!” Be sure to tell all your friends to wear their stretchiest, comfiest eatin’ pants a la Joey so you can get ready for all the Friends-themed dishes to come. And honestly, isn’t Thanksgiving with friends so much more enjoyable with a stretchy waistband?
In Season 1, Thanksgiving dinner is ruined when the friends get locked out of the apartment. For dinner, Chandler “carves” light and dark grilled cheese with a side of Funyuns. To honor that first Thanksgiving episode, consider adding this luxury grilled cheese recipe from Feast of Starlight to your Thanksgiving dinner repertoire, perhaps as an app before the more substantial dishes.
Is it really a Friends-themed Friendsgiving without a turkey in sunglasses and a fez hat? Playing on the iconic moment when Monica dances around with a turkey stuck on her head, set your own turkey as the centerpiece with a few extra flourishes. Just be sure to baste every 28 minutes to make Monica proud.
Even the Friends can’t agree on which Thanksgiving potatoes are the best, so why not make them three ways? At your feast, serve Ross’s potatoes with lumps, Phoebe’s whipped potatoes with onions and peas, and Joey’s tater tots. You’ll pay tribute to the show while also ensuring there’s something for all of your guests.
Chandler still shows up for his friends despite his “boycott of all Pilgrim holidays.” That said, he won’t partake in the turkey, so Monica serves him his “righteous mac and cheese.” It doesn’t matter if your guests are into the turkey or not, because this Friends-inspired dish is sure to get some laughs. Plus, who doesn’t love some cheesy mac?
By Season 10, Chandler eventually comes around, even bringing his own dish to share: cranberry sauce. You can amp up Chandler’s “very special cranberries” with a pinch of cinnamon and a few extra spices. Check out this ridiculously easy recipe by Spoon University to make it in under 25 minutes.
Rachel realizes she may have made a mistake when she adds a layer of ground beef and peas to her English trifle recipe, and Ross says “it tastes like feet!” To recreate Rachel’s recipe without the layer of beef, try this Food Network trifle recipe. It even replaces the meat layer with ground up chocolate cookies, coconut shavings, and green candies.
When Monica is looking for work as a chef, she creates “mockolate” — a fake chocolate that unfortunately doesn’t taste that great. Instead of mockolate, grab the real thing and recreate one of Monica’s desserts. This creamy chocolate pie recipe from The Pioneer Woman is mouthwatering.
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