Every November, social feeds fill with carefully framed plates of stuffing, living room selfies, and huge family tables. Mixed in with those are glimpses of how pop superstars spend the holiday. When those glimpses show up in interviews or posts that outlets capture, they give the rest of us something fun to try at home on our own scale.
Below is a look at confirmed Thanksgiving moments from Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga, Olivia Rodrigo, and Selena Gomez, based on coverage from major publications and TV specials. For each one, you will find not just what happened, but specific ideas for how to recreate some of that energy in your own home, with your own people.
Taylor Swift: Blended Families, Big Feelings, and Holiday Fan Gifts
In recent years, Taylor Swift has turned Thanksgiving into a mix of family time and quiet fan celebrations. One of the clearest examples came in 2024, when her family invited Travis Kelce and his relatives to celebrate together at home. That gathering was described in a People exclusive about her family hosting Travis Kelce for Thanksgiving, as a “festive and special” holiday with both families around the same table. At the time, Kelce was her boyfriend, and the focus of the reporting was how naturally he fit into an already tight family unit.
Swift also has a habit of tying big projects to the late November holiday weekend. Coverage of the release of The Eras Tour Book notes that it arrived on November 29, 2024, deliberately aligned with Thanksgiving and Black Friday, turning a coffee table book about her record breaking tour into something fans could curl up with while they were off school or work. That pairing of “family table plus fan thank you” has quietly become part of how people talk about her holiday season.
How To Borrow Taylor Swift’s Thanksgiving Traditions
- Host a blended table. If it feels right and safe for your situation, invite a partner’s family, close friends, or neighbors to share the meal with your own relatives. You do not need a mansion or a celebrity sized guest list; the tradition is simply “more chairs, more stories.”
- Create a shared soundtrack. The Eras Tour Book is essentially a souvenir of a shared music experience. Print a simple “family playlist” card with songs that matter to your group and let different people choose what plays while you eat or clean up.
- Offer a small “fan gift.” Swift tends to give fans something new to enjoy around major holidays. At home, that can be as simple as surprising everyone after dinner with a new board game, a slideshow of old photos, or a short video you edited from the year’s best clips on your phone.
- End with gratitude, not just dessert. Instead of a formal “go around the table and say what you are thankful for,” try a more Swift style approach and let people write anonymous thank you notes or memories on small cards, then read them aloud in between slices of pie.
Ariana Grande: Healing Family Bonds and Quiet House Parties
Ariana Grande has talked openly about how meaningful it was to rebuild her relationship with her father. That made her 2019 Thanksgiving especially important.
People reported that she spent that holiday with both of her parents for the first time in 18 years, sharing Instagram photos of dancing, face painting, and a black and white family selfie captioned “First Thanksgiving with both of my parents in 18 years.” E News covered the same posts, emphasizing how low key the evening looked despite her fame. A couple of years later, her Thanksgiving shifted into “small but crowded house party.” Glamour’s roundup of celebrity Thanksgiving posts in 2021 noted that Ariana shared a series of photos featuring her then husband Dalton Gomez, her brother Frankie, her mom Joan, and her dad Edward around the table.
That night included friends, family, her dog Toulouse, and plenty of music. Reporting since then has been clear that Grande and Gomez have divorced, and that relationship is now in the past, but the images still read as a snapshot of a warm, noisy, mixed group celebration. People later confirmed that their divorce was finalized in 2024.
How To Try an Ariana Inspired Thanksgiving
- Use the day for reconnection. Ariana’s 2019 posts were not about perfect food styling, they were about the emotional milestone of having both parents in the room again. If there is a friendship or family relationship that feels ready for a small step forward, Thanksgiving can be a natural time to invite that person to something low pressure, even if it is just dessert and coffee.
- Lean into goofy activities. Outlets described dancing and face painting in her family images, not just sitting at the table. Set up a simple “activity corner” with temporary tattoos, silly photo props, or coloring pages for kids and adults who are not into football.
- Mix work friends and family carefully. During her time on The Voice, Grande sometimes blended colleagues with family at holiday gatherings. If you want to mirror that, invite one or two work friends who would genuinely enjoy your family’s vibe, rather than opening the door to your entire office.
- Capture moments, not a photoshoot. Her posts that outlets picked up are candid: people laughing, dogs wandering through, plates already half eaten. Snap a few quick photos while things are happening and resist the urge to stage every detail.
Lady Gaga: TV Specials, Italian Comfort Food, and Over the Top Traditions
Lady Gaga is one of the few pop stars who has literally turned Thanksgiving into a televised event. In 2011 she conceived and directed a 90 minute ABC special called A Very Gaga Thanksgiving. The special, featured Lady Gaga performing acoustic versions of her songs, carving turkey, and sharing an intimate holiday style gathering with family, friends, chef Art Smith, and guests like Tony Bennett and Katie Couric. The setting was a New York school where she once studied, which made the whole thing feel like an artsy hometown Thanksgiving rather than a glossy arena show.
Off camera, Gaga’s approach to holiday food leans heavily into her Italian American family roots. Her father, Joe Germanotta, runs Joanne Trattoria in New York and wrote a cookbook of classic recipes and family stories from the restaurant. Around Thanksgiving, outlets highlighted some of the more memorable dishes from that book. For example,
People featured the family’s “Nutellasagna,” a dessert that layers puff pastry, mascarpone, and chocolate hazelnut spread in a lasagna style pan, and other coverage pointed out the Italian herb scented turkey that appears in the same collection of recipes.
How to Bring Gaga Energy to Your Table
- Stage a living room “special.” You do not need cameras or a network. Pick a time after dinner where kids can sing, someone can read a short poem, or you can show a homemade video on the TV. Make it feel like an “event” for the people in the room.
- Give your menu a theme. Gaga’s family leans into Italian American comfort. You might decide that your Thanksgiving will have a “pasta and pies” theme, a Cajun theme, or a family heritage theme where each person contributes a dish tied to their background.
- Try one outrageous dessert. Something like Nutellasagna is memorable because it is a little over the top. Pick one dish to be your showpiece, whether that is a towering trifle, a decorated pavlova, or an ice cream pie served with sparklers.
- Tell the story behind the recipes. The Joanne Trattoria cookbook is as much about family anecdotes as it is about food. As you serve each dish, share one short story about where it came from or who taught you to make it.
Olivia Rodrigo: Low Key Family Time and Watching Your Own Story
Compared with some of her peers, Olivia Rodrigo has kept most of her holidays fairly private, but she has shared at least one specific Thanksgiving tradition. While promoting the early days of High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, she talked about how her family supported her by literally watching her work together.
TV Guide’s piece on how the show’s cast celebrated Thanksgiving noted that Rodrigo said her family spent the previous Thanksgiving watching the first few episodes of the series together. She described it as embarrassing but cute, which sounds exactly like the kind of thing a close family would do when someone they love suddenly has a show on Disney Plus.
Outside of that specific story, most reporting about Rodrigo’s holidays focuses on her broader style rather than a detailed menu. Her public image combines very intense feelings with surprisingly normal offstage habits, which makes that “watching my own show with my family” detail land even harder. It feels like an ordinary teenager experience that just happens to involve a globally streamed series.
How to Capture Olivia’s Vibe on Thanksgiving
- Schedule a “family premiere.” You do not need a TV show to borrow this idea. Pick a time after dinner to watch home videos, a short film you made on your phone, a slideshow of the year’s photos, or even a creative project one of the kids did for school.
- Celebrate small wins. Make a habit of calling out one thing each person is proud of from the past year, big or small, the way a family might cheer for someone’s new song or new episode.
- Keep the guest list tight. The story Rodrigo shared was about her family, not a giant crowd. If you are hoping for that “embarrassing but cute” feeling, keep the viewing party to people who will actually be excited to clap for you.
- Let the food be simple. Nothing in the reporting around her Thanksgiving mentions elaborate menus. There is permission here to do a straightforward meal, order some sides, or focus your energy on one or two favorite dishes instead of an entire food marathon.
Selena Gomez: Cozy Garden Tables and Food as a Love Language
Selena Gomez has shared many pieces of her life through cooking and quiet gatherings, so it is not surprising that her Thanksgiving posts fit that pattern. In 2024 she posted a set of images that showed a relaxed meal with a garden style table, flowers, and warm lighting.
InStyle described the photos as “the coziest Thanksgiving,” noting details like the outdoor style table, a simple bouquet, and a casually arranged spread that felt more like a long dinner party than a formal banquet. Those posts also included her then boyfriend, producer Benny Blanco, cuddled close by her side. Outlets at the time framed it as a quiet holiday built around intimacy, conversation, and shared food, rather than a massive event.
Her broader public relationship with food supports that same picture. On her cooking series Selena + Chef she repeatedly framed recipes as a way to connect with friends and family, with episodes that focused more on laughing in the kitchen and learning than on strict perfection. When you put that together with the garden table Thanksgiving images, you get a pretty clear holiday theme: keep it cozy, keep it personal, and let the food feel like an act of care rather than a performance.
How to Recreate Selena’s Kind of Thanksgiving
- Think “dinner party” more than “banquet hall.” If the weather cooperates, use your patio or yard. If not, recreate the feel indoors with a single long table, unscented candles, and low lamps instead of overhead lights.
- Use one simple floral moment. Gomez’s posts highlighted a straightforward bouquet. A grocery store bunch in a plain vase can do the same job in your space. The point is a small touch of life on the table, not an expensive arrangement.
- Build a grazing style side spread. Instead of serving everything at once, set out a small charcuterie board, pickles, olives, or sliced veggies that people can return to all evening. That gives the night a slower rhythm and more time for talking.
- Invite people into the kitchen. One of the charms of Selena + Chef is watching non experts learn. Assign simple jobs like stirring gravy, chopping herbs, or plating dessert so guests feel like they are part of making the meal, not just consuming it.
Designing Your Own Celebrity Inspired Thanksgiving
None of these stars are setting out a step by step Thanksgiving blueprint for everyone else to follow. What we see instead are small, repeated choices that line up with who they already are: Taylor turning family gatherings into fan thank you seasons, Ariana using the holiday to knit family back together, Gaga mixing performance with Italian comfort food, Olivia leaning into close family time and shared viewing, and Selena treating the whole day as an extended, cozy dinner with people she loves.
The easiest way to “celebrity proof” your own holiday is not to copy every detail, but to pick one or two elements that actually fit your budget, your space, and your energy. That might be inviting an extra family to join you, planning a small living room performance, writing down the story behind a favorite recipe, or ending the night with a home movie premiere instead of collapsing in front of a random channel.
If you do that, you are already doing the same thing these artists are doing at their best: turning a standard day on the calendar into something that feels specifically yours, with memories that will still make sense long after social media has moved on to the next holiday.
