Photos: Friendsgiving in Anchorage

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The Friendsgiving party-goers at Sam and Liz Snyder’s east Anchorage home pose in the living room before dinner is served on Thanksgiving Day, November 26, 2015. The Snyders began having Friendsgiving at their home in 2009 before many of their friends had children. Now the party has grown. This year they had 25 adults and 10 kids for Thanksgiving dinner.

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.

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