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Appreciating Friendship: How To Say Thank You

Friendship comes in all kinds of packages.  The deep and lasting friendships that begin in junior school and extend into old age are rare indeed and often punctuated with quarrels and clashes of opinion over the years.  Friendship can evolve over a long period of time from being the giggling trio in the tree house to being companions in the care home.  Friends do not always get along and why should they?  The deepest friendships might be peppered with disagreements and squabbles, some of which are never quite resolved; both parties agreeing to disagree rather than dissolve a precious link as friends.

In country communities where there are few modern distractions and entertainments, friends share a social life of deeper intensity than city dwellers but tend to have fewer opportunities for leisure.  Friendship is therefore expressed in more practical ways.  A farmer might take over a sick friend’s chores; his wife might take care of her friend’s children as a gesture of friendship; friends who have suffered bereavement or be ill might be visited by friends bringing gifts of food.  Unfortunately, not a great deal of hugging and kissing goes on in these rustic communities; friendship is just not demonstrated that way.

Showing a friend you care need not cost much – in fact, it need not cost anything at all!  Women tend to have a better concept of how to express friendship than men, probably because they tend to be more emotionally charged where their friends are concerned.  A woman might vacuum the rugs or wash the dishes for a friend who has just had a baby or be overloaded at work – and these thoughtful rituals might just as easily be reciprocated in a companionable ‘you scratch my back and I will scratch yours’ give and take.  But isn’t this what friendship should be?  A two way exchange of consideration that benefits both…

At special times of the year and even for no particular reason, giving a friend a thoughtful friendship gift can mean a great deal.  Friendship thrives on consideration and companionship and cannot be expected to run forever on the occasional Christmas or birthday card.

In the holiday season as we shop for gifts to bring a smile to the face of a good friend, giving a meaningful and less costly gift, especially a gift that may be kept and treasured forever, will spread a little magic around and bring a sparkle to the occasion.

Born in Florida, Cathy grew up in Columbus, Georgia. She graduated with a BA Honors in Journalism from the University of Texas, where the emphasis of her studies was in photojournalism. After studying commercial photography at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, Cathy moved abroad to Israel where she has been for the past 23 years. Prior to forming <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="“http://mystonecompany.com/”” target=””_blank””>My Stone Company in 2005, Cathy specialized in food and portrait photography.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/gifts-articles/appreciating-friendship-how-to-say-thank-you-1569454.html

Teaching The Rituals of Friendship

When we are children, we understand the rituals of friendship so much better than we do as adults.  We play down at the creek and hunt for pebbles, comparing them for beauty, competing with our friends for the prettiest ones, painting them in bright colors to give away as gifts.  Sometimes little children swear allegiances of friendship in the most sincere possible way and never forget those early promises of eternal friendship.  Others put them aside and remember them late in life; forgotten and dusty promises.

 

Friendship rituals might be promises or tokens or even pacts made between love struck teenagers.  As we grow up, we lose so many of the sentimental emotions that accompany our devotion in early friendship.  Our simple affections and friendships in childhood lay in a neglected and yellowing photo album and we move away to be educated and find work and make families; leaving our friends at the station and promising to write every week, then every month, and finally sending the occasional sad Christmas card to mark one of the deepest and most valuable friendships of our lives.

 

Shame on us.  As we mature, we begin to recover our values when it comes to keeping friendship alive.  We remember all those sunny afternoons paddling in the creek with a good friend by our side and have the honesty to realise not many of our friendships match up to that innocent and selfless love we had for the best friend we could wish for. 

 

We hear the expression, ‘You know who your friends are when you are in trouble,’ so often yet we still neglect our friends, leaving them to wonder what we are doing and even worse, not enquiring how they are, when a phone call or letter would take just a few minutes: even better, to exchange a friendship gift that we can touch and keep close to us to remind us of how much a friend means to us. 

 

Childhood friendship rituals carry all the weight of grown up vows, which is probably why we remember them into our old age.  Those immature overtures of friendship are made without any cynical or self centred thought of ‘what’s in it for us’ – for children, friends are ‘friends forever’, which is how it should be.  Grown ups could learn a thing or two from their children when it comes to knowing how to treat a friend; a good friend; a best friend.

Born in Florida, Cathy grew up in Columbus, Georgia. She graduated with a BA Honors in Journalism from the University of Texas, where the emphasis of her studies was in photojournalism. After studying commercial photography at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, Cathy moved abroad to Israel where she has been for the past 23 years. Prior to forming <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="“http://mystonecompany.com/”” target=””_blank””>My Stone Company in 2005, Cathy specialized in food and portrait photography.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/gifts-articles/teaching-the-rituals-of-friendship-1560472.html