The holidays are a festive and fun time to spend with friends and family members. With so much to be thankful for and so many reasons to celebrate, more and more people are extending their holiday traditions to include as many of their loved ones as possible. While it’s common for people to get together with their family for Thanksgiving, many groups of friends now also get together sometime in the weeks surrounding the holiday to spend time together in a tradition called Friendsgiving.
Maryann had been planning for her Friendsgiving for two weeks in advance and was extremely excited to spend the evening with her closest friends. The event was set to take place on Nov. 19, 2021, just one week before Thanksgiving. Maryann, along with several of her friends, had a group chat where they planned everything for their fun night together. It seemed like everything was perfectly planned, as Maryann even decorated her entire basement with harvest decor and cooked a huge meal for everyone to enjoy.
Unfortunately, her dinner was missing a key component — her friends. None of them were responding to their group chat messages and no one bothered to show up. Maryann was devastated.
When she was left completely alone, she called her boyfriend named Christian to come over and explained the sad situation to him. He took a video of the empty Friendsgiving and uploaded it to TikTok, where it instantly went viral. In a surprising turn of events, it seemed like Maryann was going to get the Friendsgiving she had wanted after all.
According to the New York Post, Maryann had been planning her Friendsgiving for weeks in advance, and was left devastated when her friends didn’t show up. Her boyfriend, Christian, shared a clip of the sad moment on TikTok, which instantly went viral, garnering more than 15 million views.
In the TikTok, Christian explained, “My girlfriend was so excited for her first Friendsgiving but no one showed up. She decorated the whole basement and cooked so much food. I keep trying to cheer her up but nothing is working.” He panned around the room, revealing a large table with empty place settings.
Christian shared an update in another TikTok a few days later, and explained that Maryann just thought her friends were running late that day until it hit the three hour mark and she realized that no one was going to come. Fortunately, he revealed that Maryann got the Friendsgiving she deserved.
Before he went over to her place, he had called his own friends to come and fill the empty seats. “They were more than gracious enough to come,” Christian said. “They all came and brought stuff. It’s like she had her own Friendsgiving, there was a happy ending to it.” Maryann also appeared in the video and explained that she was no longer friends with the people who didn’t come to her Friendsgiving.
Both TikToks received plenty of views and comments with other users commending Christian for being such a great boyfriend. Several users also said that they would be Maryann’s friend in a heartbeat. One person said, “Where do I apply to be her friend?!” Another added, “She just made 1000-plus real friends on here.”
According to the New York Post, Christian said that the Friendsgiving was planned far in advance. He said:
“I’m so sad for her. My girl and her friends decided to throw a Friendsgiving like two weeks in advance, they were planning this for two weeks. They were planning everything, everything was all set — the date, the time, and everything. They were all gonna come.”
Maryann also reflected on how the night turned out differently than expected, but she still got to celebrate:
“But it was a great night, his friends and his brother showed up. We had a great time. They brought drinks and stuff, it was a fun night. I was disappointed at the time but it turned out to be a really good night.”
According to the New York Post, one commenter on the TikTok video pointed out that Maryann’s ‘friends’ weren’t worthy of her kindness after all. The commenter wrote:
“Sweetheart this was good practice for when you have friends who are worthy of you and your hosting skills.”
According to The Atlantic, ‘Friendsgiving’ is a trend that is popular among millennials, even to the point of being absorbed into the yearly Thanksgiving tradition. While there is no official date for Friendsgiving, Atlantic writer Ashley Fetters wrote that there’s a pattern to when the event takes place:
“The weekend before Thanksgiving or the weekend prior, usually.”
Fetters also wrote about how magazines and other aspects of popular culture have embraced the new trend, even publishing “Friendsgiving host guides.”
Although there’s no official etiquette to the new holiday, it’s safe to say that Maryann’s guests weren’t even close to respectful. However, we’re happy nonetheless that she got to celebrate the dinner with her boyfriend’s friends.
What did you think about the ending to this woman’s Friendsgiving? Let us know, and be sure to pass this along to your family members and friends, too.
