[velocitypsycho]

Pretty cool and hip till your parents are gone and you wish you'd spent more time with them.

Don't get me wrong, Thanksgiving with friends can be awesome, but you need to make time for family. You can't assume they will always be there.

[Thriptic]

It's all relative. I live close to my parents, and have the privilege of having dinner with them about once every other week. Meanwhile, if I'm lucky, I get to see my best friend who lives far away once every 6 months. Given this disparity, I would greatly prefer hanging out with my friend during the holidays rather than burning vacation days spending time with my nuclear family (who I see often) and extended family (who I am not close with at all) just because tradition dictates that I should do so.

[makmanalp]

And that's totally fine - for the past few years we've done friendsgiving the weekend after. That way a lot of friends can make it too. And turkeys are usually on sale if you're into that. And really if everyone pitches in something, it's a pretty darned cost effective meal too.

[CalRobert]

You also can't assume everyone will want to spend time with their parents. Some people grew up in abusive households. Some families are toxic. People don't spend time with their friends to be "cool and hip" (or if they do, I doubt that qualifies as "friends").

[dneronique]

This is more than a bit snarky.

I find traveling home for both Thanksgiving and Christmas is prohibitively expensive and difficult to acquire sufficient time off for both from work. I usually opt for taking no time off Thanksgiving week, holding a Friendsgiving, and then being free to spend more days with the fam at Xmas time. Friendsgiving is not always an excuse to avoid family.

[velocitypsycho]

Choosing more days on Xmas fits what I said about making time for family.