The Quad: A guide to Friendsgiving

With the holiday season quickly approaching, the short Thanksgiving break offers students a chance to rest, relax or catch up on studying before tackling the last few weeks of school. Deciding what to do with this time can be challenging, especially for those who live far away and can’t return home for the long weekend. If you are in Los Angeles for Thanksgiving and would like to make your own meal in your dorm or apartment, you may consider holding a “Friendsgiving” celebration in lieu of heading home. Here are some suggestions to help make this event a success.

How to host a dorm Friendsgiving

Making food in the dorms can be a real challenge, but with the dining halls closed over break, it’s time to get creative with microwave meals resembling a holiday spread. If you are ambitious enough to find a small turkey, you can use your dorm’s microwave to cook it in a microwavable bag. Most instructions say to microwave for approximately 10 minutes per pound of turkey. Stuffing, cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes are also doable in the microwave, even while living in a dorm.

For dessert, I suggest picking up a pie from Westwood and topping it with some whipped cream. If this sounds like too much, however, you might want to consider eating out. The Napa Valley Grille, located about seven minutes from campus at 1100 Glendon Ave., will be serving an entire Thanksgiving-themed meal, complete with turkey, green beans, mashed potatoes, pumpkin soup and apple-cranberry cobbler. The Main Course, at 10509 West Pico Blvd., will also be open and is a bit more affordable, with turkey entrees priced around $20. They also offer free delivery and discounted prices for group orders.

Tips for hosting Friendsgiving in your apartment

If you are a student living in an apartment, you can afford to be a little more flexible as far as cooking. Turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce supplies are all available at Trader Joe’s, Target and Whole Foods Market in Westwood. Of course, you can always use your microwave as well if cooking is too daunting.

Decorations and Music

You can get little pumpkins from Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods to bring some fall spirit to your setting. Strung holiday lights are also a good way to help everyone get out of school mode and into a more festive spirit.

For some extra ambience, autumnal music can really help set the tone. Thanksgiving songs can be hard to find, but here is a playlist of some songs that may help it seem a little more like fall despite Los Angeles’ unchanging weather.

Whatever you end up doing to celebrate, we wish all of our Bruins a happy Thanksgiving break!