Anchorage

In a city where thousands move from out of state, friends fill Anchorage homes for Thanksgiving

Sam Snyder pulled the ham out of the oven. The turkey still needed 30 minutes.

As it cooked, children chased each other through the kitchen, some sported costumes or wielded toy swords. A football game played in the nearby living room, people hugged hello and foil-covered dishes lined the countertops.

The scenes that played out on Thanksgiving Day in the East Anchorage home involved friends who had become family in a city that attracts thousands of new residents from out-of-state each year. Many have dubbed the tradition of bringing together friends for Thanksgiving as "Friendsgiving."

The term has become a trend.

Sam Snyder, 37, and his wife Liz, 35, have hosted Thanksgivings for friends at their Anchorage home for several years, though they never called it Friendsgiving. Instead, it felt like a big dinner party and a recreation of the holidays bustling with family that they knew as kids.

When Snyder and his wife showed up in Anchorage seven years ago, he said they knew one person. Both of the Snyders grew up with big Thanksgiving dinners, crowded with family and extended relatives. In Anchorage, he said, "We want to recreate that." Here, they've found that community with friends.

Their dinner Thursday featured a signature cocktail with sweet tea bourbon, a collection of canned goods for the local food bank and a guest list with the names of about 10 children and 25 adults.

ADVERTISEMENT

As one of the Snyder's friends, 35-year-old Nelli Williams, put it: "It's kind of fun up here because you get to choose your family."

The Snyders, Williams and the rest of the adults at dinner Thursday all moved to Alaska from other states.

Eric Sandberg, a state demographer, estimated between 15,000 and 20,000 people move to the Municipality of Anchorage from Outside each year. (About the same amount leave, too, he said).

Some of those arriving in Anchorage -- like the Snyders from Florida -- came for the job. Others -- like 27-year-old Taylor Keegan from Pennsylvania -- were drawn to the landscape and the people.

"There's this incredible sense of autonomy and also community here," Keegan said.

Keegan moved to Anchorage in June. She video chatted with her family via FaceTime Thursday morning. By the afternoon, she was pulling maple-glazed acorn squash out of the oven and getting ready to celebrate her first Thanksgiving in Alaska, tucked inside a log cabin in the Anchorage neighborhood of Fairview.

"I feel really lucky. I feel thankful to have found such a great friend group," she said. The dinner in Fairview was one of three Friendsgivings Keegan was invited to this year.

"Thanksgiving feels like a wider-community event, which is really nice," she said. "You don't have a friends-Christmas. Friendsgiving is a really adaptable holiday."

Kendra Higgins organized the Fairview dinner -- a casual affair where sort of anything goes. Higgins is a 27-year-old who grew up in South Anchorage, works as a physical therapist and loves to bike.

She expected about 22 people to come over Thursday, including her parents. Vases of flowers sat on long tables covered in mismatched tablecloths. Higgins said she invited her family, her friends and anyone she knew who didn't have family in Anchorage and might not have a place to go for the holiday.

Thanksgiving, she said, "is an all-inclusive time where you can bring everyone you care about to one place."

In Eagle River, Melissa Webber, 27, spent Thanksgiving with a small group of friends. She moved to Anchorage from California about a year ago as a member of AmeriCorps.

She admitted she doesn't get that same warm feeling video chatting with her family on Thanksgiving compared to when she sat down at the table next to them. "It's kind of sad," she said.

Still, Webber spent Thursday with close friends for a dinner accompanied by booze and followed up with games like Cards Against Humanity and Bananagrams, because Thanksgiving is still Thanksgiving and there's time to make traditions of her own.

"I try to make it important here," Webber said.

Tegan Hanlon

Tegan Hanlon was a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News between 2013 and 2019. She now reports for Alaska Public Media.

ADVERTISEMENT