Be the World’s Best Hostess this Thanksgiving

I take being a hostess very seriously. I don’t know why exactly, but it’s always felt like an important job. Maybe because my mom is from the Louisiana and exudes southern hospitality. Maybe because my home growing up was a revolving door, with family friends coming by as they pleased to grab a drink out of the garage fridge, whether we were home or not. Sometimes we’d pull into the driveway just to find another car blocking the garage, and smiling faces waiting for us at the patio table.

Those memories of my childhood feel special – and it’s something I’ve always wanted to recreate in my own home. So when people come over…sometimes I go a little overboard. I love cooking an excellent meal and catering to my guests, and there is no more perfect time to go overboard on those things than on Thanksgiving. Thus was born – Friendsgiving at John and Emily’s.

I really feel that last year I shook all the kinks out and have a solid plan in front of me – and lucky you, because I am going to teach you my ways. From start to finish, I’m going to walk you through how I host an excellent party. And I’ll give you all of the tools along the way so that you can do it, too.

The Logistics

I plan my events by starting broad and then working my way into the details. I’ve created the perfect party planning guide that I use for all of my work and personal events. It makes sure I haven’t forgotten anything and guides me through budget, supplies, timelines, and more. I’m releasing it as my free lifestyle guide this month – you can sign up to receive the free PDF HERE.

I’ve had the date, time, location, menu, supply list, and budget nailed down since early October. Figuring everything out in advance helps me not only prepare without stress, it also gives me time to take care of some bigger projects and get my home ready to present in a way that makes me proud.

Throughout the sections below you’ll see a series of checklists. Once I make these lists of “to dos” I run through them and assign a date and then put them into my Google Calendar as reminders (because GC rules all).

Prepping My Home

This is an incredibly important step for me. I feel that a well decorated, cozy, clean home adds to the warm experience that I’m aiming to create. The experience of my guests is what I have in my mind as I break down all of the small details. Plus, beautiful homes is kind of what I do.

One thing I desperately wanted in our home before winter this year was a fireplace. There’s just something about hanging your stockings on the mantle and watching the fire burn in the reflection of the window with snow falling outside. You can’t convince me there’s a more peaceful feeling. The only problem is we didn’t have one! So we had to build one.

This was project #1: living room remodel. It was ongoing through the rest of the planning.

Now listen to me real fast, and listen good. YOU DON’T HAVE TO REMODEL YOUR HOME EVERY TIME YOU HAVE A PARTY. I just had to make sure that was said. However, did I do it? Yes, yes I did. I’ll be posting a before and after with details about how we designed and built our fireplace on social media. You can follow me HERE.

Here were the remaining things on my home prep checklist:

Set up front porch decor – Right at the front door where the experience starts and I want it to start off right. Right at the front door. I do all my pumpkin shopping at Red Barn Farm. I cannot be swayed that anywhere else in KC can match their selection.
Make sure the interior is decorated for the season – I used to set up Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving, but now that we have this Friendsgiving tradition I feel like it’s best to keep the Fall decor out for one more day to hit the Thanksgiving themed decor.
Plan out centerpieces, table settings, and linens – I really love doing a family-style meal, so we’ll all be sitting at one long table this year. Which means only one centerpiece, but I really wanted to do it up big. My inspiration photos I found on Pinterest are below, but I plan to keep things autumnal while still remaining neutral to match the color scheme in the rest of my home.
Organize drawers in kitchen – I want to make sure that everything I’m going to need to cook will be accessible to me and know that if I asked one of my guests to grab something, that I’d know exactly where to have them look and that it would be an easy find.
Make the guest bathroom guest friendly – this means adding anything that they might need while they’re here. Things like cotton swabs, q-tips, dental floss, mouthwash, blotting papers, hand sanitizer, hand lotion, tampons, body spray, deodorant, safety pins, hairspray, dry shampoo, ponytail holders, bobby pins, and an array of over the counter medications for things like headaches, tummy aches, and cramps. I set these things out in a little basket on the counter so they can’t be missed. Hack: When the party is over, I stick this basket in the closet and pull it out when we have guests again. It’s a gesture of hospitality that people remember, but it takes very little effort to execute.
Make sure I have enough candles and Wall Flower fragrances – you’ll never catch me turning down a trip to Bath and Body Works. I’m a big fan of blueberry maple pancakes and pumpkin marshmallow from their fall fragrance line.
Cleaning – this is really going to amp up next week. I have an amazing cleaning checklist that I created – keep an eye out for it in my February Guide. This includes all the nooks and crannies, my friends.

The Menu

Typically guests start arriving to mingle while I’m still cooking dinner, so that means I need to have plenty for them to snack on. When I’m planning the menu, I start with 4 categories: appetizers, main dish, sides, and desserts. I come up with a ton of ideas and then sift through them to see what dishes compliment each other. This year I’ve decided to keep the menu pretty traditional and have some fun with presentation. Here is the menu I made in Canva:

Last year, I learned a couple of lessons:

Don’t make the protein. Just DON’T DO IT. Turkey is such a time consuming dish and if you’ve only got a single oven (like me!) then it hogs all the space you need for the other food. I purchase mine in advance from a local BBQ joint, Jousting Pigs, that makes an absolutely phenomenal turkey breast.
Make ahead anything that you can. This year, the only things I’ll have to cook during the party are macaroni and cheese, brussel sprouts, carrots, and apple crumble. Everything else can either be made the day before or the morning of.
Create a “day of” timeline and do your best to stick to it. Give yourself some prep time early in the morning and figure out how you can multi-task on different dishes. To do this properly, you need to make a list of every step and how long it will take you. This ensures you don’t forget anything and that all the food comes out at ready at the same time. Include even smaller details like “pack up appetizers while the final item is cooking to make room for dessert on the table”. If your meal is more involved and is going to take a while to finish, make sure you schedule yourself in some time with your friends. This was a mistake I made last year and didn’t actually spend much time with everyone until dessert.

The People

I sent my invitations out on October 25th – a month in advance. I just created a simple invite on Canva and sent it in a group text to our friends. (I cropped our address from the bottom for privacy here).

I also created a Facebook Event 2 weeks out to get a better idea of how many people we’ll have coming – plus, it will send them reminders so you don’t have to.

I also wanted there to be some fun activities for guests to use to mingle, and I wanted to be able to send everyone home with some type of party favor. Here are the ideas I have for this year:

Put together a Spotify Playlist – When I sent out our invitation, I had everyone send in song requests. It was so interesting to see how diverse the music was and I think people will really get excited when they hear their songs come on. See ours HERE.
Thankful Board – This is what the whole day is about, after all. In our entry way, I’ll hang a large sheet of butcher paper from the wall with “I’m Thankful For…” written in the middle, and leave a few markers for everyone to add to it as they come in. I figure that each year, I can hang them next to each other as decoration to remind us of all the things we love and all the gifts we have in our lives.
Board Games – an instant crowd pleaser. You will not go wrong with a board game corner at literally any event in your home.
Party Favors – Last year, I did a simple chocolate chip cookie because my menu was so robust and time consuming. This year, I’ve got things figured out a little bit better and feel like I can do something more fun and knock it out a day or two in advance. I’m going to be making a small gift box with 4 different flavors of homemade whoopie pies. If you search on Pinterest there are dozens of recipes and flavor combinations. I’m going to be making: pumpkin spice, carrot cake, caramel apple, and banana cream.

I’m going to be documenting each part of the preparation for Friendsgiving on my TikTok fand may even live stream cooking the day of – go and follow me HERE so we can prep together.

Happy Hostessing ☺️