What are your Friendship Traditions?

Meet my girlfriend Carole (on the far right). This is her girlfriend group – the Divas. The Divas have a very fun girlfriend tradition: When anyone in their girlfriend group has a birthday that ends with an “0,” they get that many gifts! They’ve been doing it for years and have celebrated milestones from 40 – 60. (When you’re celebrating with your BFFs, age doesn’t matter!)

One girlfriend in our Facebook community of women shared that she and her BFF call each other every day. My friend Terri, who is an amazing chef, has a gourmet girlfriend group where she and her girlfriends get together to share a meal based on the host’s direction/theme. My college girlfriends Deana, Rhonda and I are long time and long distance friends. To stay in touch, we have a weekly  tradition. Every Friday we share an email update so we stay away of what we’re all up to and stay close as girlfriends. From what books we’re reading to job or relationship changes, to everything in between, we get to share each other’s lives and support and cheer for each other.

We’re celebrating this Month of Friendship and today we’re exploring ‘girlfriend traditions‘ – little rituals, girlfriend groups and ways we stay in touch with each other on a regular basis.

As women, we get busy and it’s not easy to stay in touch – unless we make an effort. Girlfriend Traditions help us get/stay in the habit of getting together with or connecting with the women in our lives who we just need to be friends with. From phone calls to email, bunco to book club, knitting or running together, these girlfriend traditions make sure we find time for each other and help us share our lives on a regular basis. And, often they combine the things we love – our girlfriends and things we love to do together like talk, read, dine/drink, hobbies and activities.

(NOTE: We’re looking for girlfriend groups to feature in a book. Please share if you and your girlfriends have an interesting, fun group!)

And here are some girlfriend tradition ideas from our Facebook Friends:

• Rhonda: Just got back from eating lunch with two of my best girlfriends. We try to go once a month and try new places out.
• Kristina: We have a date every Monday night, we meet at someone’s house or head out for appies or coffee anything to get together and have chat time!
• Terri: Five of my high school friends and I go out to dinner or something about once a month–when our kids were little it was about every two months, now it may be every couple weeks depending on whims! (We graduated more than 30 years ago and all went to different colleges.) They are great women and great friends!
• Amy: We walk together almost every day and bike together every Sunday.
• Bev: I talk to my friend Louise every morning on my commute to work. My sister and I talk every Saturday morning at 8 am.

What girlfriend traditions do you have? Any you’d like to start? Share and inspire!

Here’s days 1-8 on our Month of Friendship:

• Day 1: Throw a girlfriend dinner party
• Day 2: Girlfriend Gratitude
• Day 3: Social Media Friends
• Day 4: Make a memory gift for your girlfriend
• Day 5: Phone a Friend!
• Day 6: Plan a Girlfriend Trip
• Day 7: Pamper your Pals
• Day 8: Make a Friend Laugh