Hosting a Friendsgiving and running a 5K are two things I have been wanting to do for the past few Falls, and this year I decided to combine the two and host a Friendsgiving 5K! I’m so glad I finally made it happen, it was such a sweet gathering! It was so much fun that I thought I’d share some of the details in case you want to host one, too!
The idea really came from wanting to run a 5K with my running buddy and not being able to find one in the area that would work for our schedules. All the Turkey trots were on the morning of Thanksgiving which doesn’t work for our families. I figured we would just make our own little 5K…which turned out to be a little If You Give a Mouse a Cookie kind of situation. So we extended an invitation to 3 other girlfriends and their families.
I had no interest in trying to organize a traditional Thanksgiving feast, but decide instead to call it a pie-fest. Because, let’s be honest pie is kinda the star of the show, am I right?
Of course, you can’t call yourself a festive Mama if you don’t take the theme a little too far——so that is precisely what I did, and our Friendsgiving Piefest 5K was born! Overall it was a pretty easy event to host. You can make it as simple or extravagant as you want, but honestly I think people enjoy simple gatherings with just a few little extras to make it feel special!
To keep the food really simple we had each family bring a pie (homemade or not!) to share and then all pitched in to order pizza. You could totally go potluck or do soups, but we had two families driving in from out of town, so we wanted to make it really easy.
We started the event at a local park that had a walking path around it. Since we had 16 kids of varying ages we offered a little one lap fun run to get the kids in on the exercise. They had fun racing, got little DIY finisher “medals” and then played at the park while the Mamas ran/walked/jogged a 5K. (it worked that none of the husbands were too interested in participating, but you could totally do a more family— bike, stroller, walk style event)
The 5K course ended at our house where the rest of the festivities took place. We ate pizza and pie, enjoyed each other’s company and ended the afternoon by praying a Rosary together. It was such a sweet time, being together and praising God for the gift of friendship!
Some of the extras I did to make the gathering feel more like an event were: race tshirts, a few decorations, coloring pages, themed coozies and finisher medals.
This Thanksgiving Turkey-name chart and name tags added an element of silliness and laughter. (Almost as much laughter as when I sprayed my friend and not her pie with whipped cream! whoops!)
I also made a pin the whip cream on the pie game, but the kids played so well together we didn’t even need it!
If you don’t have the space to host I think the whole event could also be done at a park!
Here are some of the pintables that I used in case you want in on the pie-fest fun!
The gathering was so much fun I hope it will become an annual event! Do you have any fun friendsgiving type traditions that you do? I’d love to hear!
Megan
