What traditions keep your friendships close year after year? With busy lives full of to-do lists, laundry and more, it's not always easy to make time for friends the way you once did. But help is on the way! Check out iVillagers' top 10 ideas for staying in touch on a regular basis, and then share this list with a friend by emailing it to her today.
"My girlfriends and I share a wonderful Sunday brunch tradition. We set aside a day, once a month, to get together and eat good food, drink champagne, have great conversation and be merry. We don't limit ourselves to one location for brunch either. We search the Web and get recommendations for new spots every time.
"Each year in September or October, we invent a team T-shirt, load the car with 'road food' and meet in Little Rock, Arkansas, to participate in the annual Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure."
"Our candlelight porch talks! My best friend and I get together at least once a week, and no matter what the weather is like, we light candles, grab a cup of coffee, set our children to play and then commence with a gab-fest."
"An important tradition that we have is our reading circle. Every month one of us chooses a book that we all read and we then we meet up for a book review."
"To keep our closeness alive, my three best friends and I decided to start a journal. One of us takes the book and writes about the latest happenings in her life, adding pictures or clipped emails, and then ships it over to the next girl."
"My friends and I spend time together each month doing a new creative activity. We all met when we took a class together based on the book, The Artists Way. Since that time, we have chosen a new activity to try together each month."
"Every two weeks my best friend and I celebrate 'Happy Day.' We get together on a Saturday morning to get our hair done, have lunch and go shopping. It's a day for both of us to unwind from our hectic week, and be wild and free teenagers again."
"We get together and cook. We plan out a menu and divide up the ingredients list so that everyone brings something. We then choose music that plays while we are cooking, and then everyone eats, cleans up and takes home the leftovers."
"We have one funny nightly tradition. We call each other around 9pm every night and have a nightcap. It doesn't always involve a drink, sometimes just some insightful conversation to recap the day's events."
"Now, five years later, friends of 52 years meet every month, pay $10 dues and reenergize ourselves with each other. At the end of the year, half of the money goes to charity while the other half goes toward a special dinner for us."
Sharon Stimpfle is an iVillage intern.
