Daniel Seavey Imagines

Thankful

I don't think anyone truly understands stress until they've tried to cook a Thanksgiving meal. when you're a kid, Thanksgiving was the best. your parents would cook, your cousins would come over after you hadn't seen them in forever, and no one expected you to make a whole speech about who you're thankful for. once you start to grow up, your family starts to separate and by the time you're old enough to cook for yourself, you're expected to and everything just becomes stressful.

personally, thanksgiving isn't my favorite holiday, but when my boyfriend and his friends begged for the Friendsgiving that everyone in LA seems to have, I couldn't help but agree to it. Each of them had invited their girlfriends over to the why don't we household and together, we were gonna cook the traditional Thanksgiving meal. I'm not exactly sure how well it was going to go, but in case of emergency, there's leftover pizza in the fridge and I'm sure we can make it work.

Corbyn and Christina went shopping yesterday after we'd all chosen which courses and sides we'd want to have at the dinner. Tate suggested that if we wanted to make this entire dinner work, we'd have to work together and follow strict recipes. Christina was really the only one who had semi-strong cooking experience and because she was so Italian, really all she had was her knowledge of a good Italian meal.

Corbyn, Christina, Gabbie, and Jack were put on the task of the main courses: turkey and mashed potatoes. they were a strong group when working together, so it was easy to trust them. Plus, they all know how to use the internet when things get difficult. Zach and Raegan took control of the stuffing. I don't really know if we trust Zach all that much, but having his girlfriend there to take control made us less reluctant. Jonah and Tate were responsible for sides like string beans, crescent rolls, and corn. Finally, Daniel and I decided to work on desserts. We wanted to make lots of different kinds of pie.

The open kitchen was extremely crowded, but we definitely had some fun. The boys chose the music and it was kind of a blast to just dance around the kitchen and smell the amazing food. Every once in a while, we would accidentally run into each other, but the cooking process seemed to go pretty smoothly. It's almost three o'clock now, and we were getting everything ready to serve.

"Hey, Zach, babe. Can you go set the table?" Raegan turned around after grabbing ten plates from the cabinets.

"Yeah. What do I need?"

"Forks, knives, spoons, napkins, and plates." His blonde haired girlfriend reminded him and then he took each of these things and made his way to the dining room. It was rarely used, but definitely came in handy for today's agenda.

Daniel stood behind me, with his hands on my waist as I stirred several pounds of apples in a large bowl. We'd already spent our time making both pecan and pumpkin pies, but for our final dessert option, we decided on an apple crumble. It's a fall classic and goes perfectly with vanilla ice cream. Also, it wasn't too difficult to make so it was nice to save for last.

"Here, babe, taste this." I hold up an apple on a wooden spoon for my boyfriend to try. He takes the apple with his freshly washed fingers and plops it into his mouth. "What else does it need?"

"nothing. it's perfect, baby." he compliments.

"you sure? is it enough cinnamon?" i question. "here, someone else come try this."

daniel laughs, "do you not trust my opinion?"

"no, you're not going to be brutally honest with me." I giggle as Tate takes an apple from my spoon.

"I think it's good." Tatum tells me and I smile, thanking her.

"that's what I just told you!" My boyfriend exclaims.

I turn my head to face him as he stood behind me. "Yes, but Tatum is going to tell me the whole truth."

"It's true." Gabbie adds to our conversation. "You're too in love with her to tell her the truth."

"That is so not true." Daniel defends, but it's pointless. "Someone tell them that it's not true."

"Sorry, bro." Corbyn looks at his bandmate. "It's pretty true. It's a good thing though."

"I am not a liar."

I giggle, leaning up and pecking his lips, "I know you're not, baby."

"Can we eat now?" Jack looks at us all with a look of desperation. We all laughed at his impatience.

"Daniel and I are ready; I just have to put the apple crumble in the oven." I admit and the others all start to add the finishing touches to their friendsgiving pieces.

Daniel took the pie tin from me, "I got it."

"oh, thank you love." I smile at him and then take off my apron. It was something I'd gotten for my birthday when I was like fifteen and I thought that baking brownies from a box meant that I was a professional. It does always prove handy, though.

"Alright, ladies and gents." Tate starts her rundown of the food, "Turkey is all carved. To the right of it we've got the mashed potatoes, string beans, and corn. On the island, we have the crescent rolls, the stuffing, and of course, the gravy. Everything else you need is likely in the fridge and if it isn't, then it looks like your friendsgiving is going to have to go on without it."

We all start cheering and clapping as she finishes with a laugh. Jonah kisses her cheek softly, "Great job, baby."

"Let's eat." Zach is the first one into the dining room to grab his plate. We all follow him and Jack, who are unsurprisingly starving. It took about ten minutes for everyone to find their food and then wander back into the dining room.

Jonah and Corbyn sat at the head and foot of the table and the rest of us just piled around, sitting next to the ones we love. i don't know why, but this friendsgiving seemed to be so much more fun than thanksgiving in my family normally was. Whether it be compared with just my immediate family or my extended, my why don't we family definitely kept good company that was hard to compete with.

Gabbie recited Grace for us and then we started to eat. As soon as our prayer had finished, the volume in the room increased as we all started to chatter among ourselves, eating the delicious food that we'd just made. For some reason, the food tasted even better because I knew that we had made it ourselves.

All of our plates were empty as Daniel stood up. We were going to grab dessert soon, but leave it to sentimental Daniel to stand up first and start off your traditional thanksgiving speeches.

"I just wanted to thank you all for being here. I'm extremely grateful and thankful to have all of you in my life. Boys, I'm forever grateful for you guys and our band. I mean, look how far we've gotten and it's only the beginning. Tate, Gabbie, Christina, and Raegan, I'm so thankful for you guys because I've seen how happy you've made my best friends and having you guys around is always a lot of fun for us all. And Y/n, of course, you're my best-est friend and I'm so grateful for everything you do for me. I hope that I get to spend the rest of my friendsgivings and thanksgivings with you. I love you all."

We all smiled and clapped. It was a few moments before I stood up too, my arm wrapped around my boyfriend's back as I looked up at him and then at everyone else, "I always grew up with a negative connotation around thanksgiving because I'm really bad at expressing my emotions and feelings and all that kind of shit, but that doesn't mean I'm not thankful for all of you guys. I had a really fun time with all of you today and I hope that we can keep up with these traditions in the years to come. I'm so thankful for all of you!"

After Daniel and I sat down, everyone else went around and shared what they were thankful for and it made me smile. Even if I am bad at expressing emotions, being with these guys made it a little bit easier to open up and share how thankful I really am to have them in my life.