Home-cooking a full Thanksgiving meal is a task for even the most experienced of families, so with some college students attempting it before break with friends, the experience should be, at the very least, academic.

"We never get to really celebrate any holidays with our friends because we are always home with our families for them, so I guess it will be fun to do this," said Alison Foote (junior-secondary education), who is attempting to host her first Thanksgiving dinner with friends this week.

Foote said aside from the turkey, their self-made Thanksgiving feast will include the basics like stuffing, mashed potatoes, vegetables and pumpkin pie.

"I don't know if we can make a pumpkin pie," she said. "We'll probably have to buy that."

Foote said she and her friends still need to determine who will cook what for their dinner.

"My roommate and I usually just make microwaveable dinners, so we don't cook that much, but our neighbors that cook a lot hopefully will know what they're doing," she said.

Foote's roommate, Kelly Quinn (junior-biology), said the hardest part about preparing for the dinner is figuring out who will cook the turkey.

"None of us know how to cook a turkey, so that's going to be the real challenge," she said. "I called my mom and asked her how to cook a turkey, and she just laughed at me."

Foote, too, is concerned about how the turkey will be cooked.

"Our parents are good cooks, though," she said, "so we can all call them for help, but I think it will all go smoothly."

Roommates Natalie Lemme (senior-civil engineering), Kelley Clark (senior-biobehavioral health), Heather Struhl (senior-nutrition) and Kristen Singer (senior-biochemistry and molecular biology) cooked a Thanksgiving feast for about 15 to 20 friends last November and plan on having a holiday extravaganza again this year.

"We had everything for last year's dinner," Clark said. "Turkey, broccoli casserole, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, corn and stuffing."

Lemme added that pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, apple pie and Oreo pie were all dessert options.

"We cooked some of the big things like the turkey, stuffing and desserts," Lemme said. "Our guy friends brought over some of the sides like the casseroles."

Clark said leftovers lasted the girls for many days after their dinner.

"There was tons of food," she said. "We had so much leftover turkey."

As for cooking the turkey, Lemme and company didn't have as many problems as they expected.

"One of our other roommates cooked the turkey and her mom told her how to clean it," Lemme said. "It wasn't that hard for a turkey, just some thawing out, simple seasoning and it cooked for about four hours."

One mishap did occur, however, when a small fire broke out on the stove while cooking the turkey's gravy.

"Everyone was freaking out," Clark said. "It was nothing serious, though, just a little smoky and no food was ruined."

All in all, the girls thought the turkey turned out a lot better than expected, and they liked the more casual vibe of Thanksgiving with friends rather than family.

"It was different because we didn't have a big dining room table so we couldn't all sit down together," Clark said, "and although the guys dressed up, all the girls wore sweatpants."

Singer, too, said she liked the more relaxed environment their dinner had.

"This was nice because everyone made or brought their own thing so it was a little different," she said. "We were all just kind of sitting around the floor, and I liked that it was a buffet style because with my family we usually have to bring all the food to the table and pass it around, so it takes forever."

Grant Heinauer (senior-information sciences and technology) was one of the guests at last year's Thanksgiving feast.

"There was a lot of good food, and the stove caught on fire so that was pretty interesting," he said. "My friends and I brought a green bean casserole and that was easy to make."

Heinauer said the dinner was more fun than a typical family Thanksgiving.

"The dinner was a lot funnier because we joked a lot more and everyone did their own part, unlike if I'm going to my aunt's house with my family and everything is all already made for us," he said.

Struhl said students who live off-campus and have the opportunity to make dinner with their friends should definitely do it.

"It's a nice way to get together with your friends, watch football, hang out and eat a lot of food, and everyone helps out a bit with everything," she said.