Happy Friday, Darlings!

It’s a chilly and windy day here in PA! We got to celebrate some friends’ wedding last night, ended up getting POURED on in the torrential rain, wore costumes, bar hopped, met up with some more friends, and it was all pretty spoopy! (Congrats Zander & Skye!)

One of our friends is going abroad for a few months, and she is going to miss Thanksgiving, so we decided to throw a super early Friendsgiving so she could celebrate before heading on her journey!

What is a Friendsgiving, you might ask? Well, it’s exactly what it sounds like! Ha! We had a big (early) Thanksgiving meal with our group of friends! We all brought dishes, our host made a turkey, it was potluck style, and we all left stuffed & happy!

Let me just sneak the boring stuff so we can get to the goods! Check me out on Instagram here!  I also have a selling Instagram page where I sell some of my old clothes/styles so that I don’t drown in my own wardrobe.

So to get ready for the party, we all split up what we were going to bring! I volunteered to bring mashed potatoes, corn souffle (recipe below, serious YUM factor), an alcoholic punch, and some decorations to make it totally festive!

Preston & I teamed up with West Shore Plaza, located in Lemoyne, PA! It’s so convenient, has a bunch of places to stock up on everything for our Friendsgiving! We stopped in to The Dollar Store, Karn’s, Macri’s Chocolate, the PA Wine & Spirit Shop, & Isaac’s deli!

Armed with a budget of $100 – we wanted to make this the best Friendsgiving ever!

The Decorations

For the decorations, we wanted something festive but not anything super fancy – so we stopped into The Dollar Tree at West Shore Plaza!

I snagged some washcloths that I opened and put next to each other to make a runner, I also snagged some oven mitts (I was afraid our host wouldn’t have enough – and I was right!), those cute little glitter pumpkins, the fake leaves, paper plates, paper napkins, cups, & the serving platters! I ended up spending less than $20 to transform this kitchen island! It became the centerpiece of our festivities!

The Magic Holiday Punch

4 cups pomegranate juice chilled
1 to 2 cups vodka chilled
6 ounces pineapple juice chilled
1 2 liter bottle Canada Dry Ginger Ale chilled
2 or 3 oranges sliced

Recipe found on Pinterest, but I added a little twist with a Cran-Pom juice! It was delicious! A total smash hit! This recipe was enough for eight of us! (and we’re not shy about having a few drinks!)

I stopped in to PA Wine & Spirits in the West Shore Plaza to grab a bottle of Tito’s (& a pumpkin spiced vodka to put in our coffee!). Then we bopped over to Karn’s to grab the rest of our supplies for this drink, including the soda, pineapple juice, cran-pom juice, & even the ice!

The Food

We all brought a dish to share! I brought desserts (more deets on those below), the corn souffle, the punch, and the decorations!

Our hosts MADE A TURKEY! It was SO good and yummy and perfectly Thanksgiving-y (it’s a word, HA!). Other friends brought brussel sprouts, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, & rolls! Triple yum!

I’m sharing my Corn Souffle Recipe source- it’s seriously my biggest hit at every family  holiday! I shopped my ingredients at Karn’s in the West Shore Plaza!

Dessert

Now stacked up on top of my Dollar Tree platter, I added the best part of all – the dessert!

I stopped in to Macri’s in West Shore Plaza to grab one of their salty & sweet party trays! IT WAS SO GOOD. We had milk & dark chocolate covered pretzels, and get this, CHOCOLATE COVERED POTATO CHIPS! YUM! So good!

But for any non-chocolate-lovers, we also stopped in at Isaac’s Deli to grab a cookie & brownie tray for a convenient way to serve a crowd! Thank you to our friends at Isaac’s!

& last, but not least, the friends!

We had a great time sharing recipes, playing games, laughing, snapping pictures, and eating ourselves into a coma!

We had such a great time at our first annual Friendsgiving! It was so fun! Thank you to West Shore Plaza for helping us have a great time!

Happy Holiday Season!

As it’s finally November 1, I’m ready to start getting ready for ALL the holiday festivities! Friendsgiving, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, a few weddings, Preston’s play (he’s Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady!), and a bunch of fun blog content!

The end of this year is going to FLY!

Thank you, West Shore Plaza, for helping us kick off the season right!

Check out West Shore Plaza online!

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*this post is sponsored by West Shore Plaza, however all thoughts and opinions are my own!*

SO HERE’S THE “END OF BLOG” SPIEL!

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Thank you for all that you do. You are truly extraordinary.

Love all you wonderful ladies (and gents!) out there!

How Very,

Abby