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Read about how best friend traditions will enhance your friendships and provide the best possible memories!
Hey, fellow friendship enthusiasts! Friendships are something you will forever be grateful for, and it’s important to celebrate those close connections you share with friends! Whether you’ve been inseparable since kindergarten or recently stumbled upon your bestie, we have the blueprint that’ll teach you how to turn your friendships into a non-stop celebration. That’s the way friendships should be – filled with constant laughter, memorable experiences, and the occasional questionable dance move. Forming best friend traditions is a fun, effective way of celebrating and expressing appreciation for the friendships you have.
In this blog post, we’re going to share 10 of the most fun best friend traditions. They’ll make your bonds stronger than ever. From monthly adventures out of town to crazy craft nights, and everything in between, these traditions are the secret ingredient to keeping your friendships interesting and exciting! Grab that bestie of yours and get ready to plan your journey of tradition-building. You will both be saying, “why the heck didn’t we start this sooner?!” Take a look at each of these 10 best friend traditions and get started with your favourite one!
These traditions are great for 1-on-1 events with that #1 best friend as well as with a group of besties!
1. Monthly Adventure Day
Picture this: a monthly escape from the mundane routine, a day dedicated solely to exploring new places and having a smile plastered on your face! Introduce your bestie to the idea of monthly adventure days. Whether it’s conquering hiking trails, visiting the attractions on the other side of town, or attending a class to learn a new skill, these monthly escapades will be the highlight of your calendar. It’s about the shared excitement, the accidental detours, and the inevitable inside jokes that will come from each adventure. Have your backpack at the ready so that you’re prepped for the next day of escaping reality with your BFF. What will you first adventure be?
2. Memory Jar
Imagine storing your favourite memories of the year in a jar to then open it and re-experience each of them at the end of the year! Welcome to the memory jar, where you and your best friend will turn reminiscing into a full-blown tradition. Throughout the year, you’re going to toss in snippets of our adventures, inside jokes, and ‘remember when‘ moments that could have only ever happened in your unique, crazy lives. Opening that jar at the end of the year will be like diving into a time capsule of laughter, nostalgia, and possibly a few cringey tales you conveniently forget about. It’ll be like reliving the best scenes of a feel-good film, but instead of a box of popcorn, you’ll have a jar full of joy. So, why not start now? Find your jar, dress it up how you like, and drop in the first memory.
3. Cook Up a Storm Together
Clear your schedules and dust off the aprons! This best friend tradition is less about improving your culinary skills and more about having a laugh and trying out new foods! Every year or every 6 months, pick a theme, gather ingredients that range from gourmet to ‘what the heck is that’ and embark on an adventure that might just redefine the your relationship with the kitchen. From combining foods from different cultures to attempting the strangest baked goods, nights your themed cooking or baking night is going to be a delightful disaster! Get creative with your themes – try Slow Cooker Saturdays, A Night at the Oscars and so much more (Melissa, A Home to Make). Enjoy the culinary chaos and the shared joy that comes from both triumphs and epic fails in the kitchen!
4. Make Your Own Club
This best friend tradition can be tailored to the taste of you and your besties! Starting something along the lines of a book club or film club is a great way to spend time together and grow even closer. This is how it’ll look – you decide on a novel, movie or TV show together, soak up those stories in your own time and band back together on a set date to discuss what you read or watched. Openly sharing your opinion on the story and partaking in healthy debates goes a long way in helping your friendships grow. Disagreeing over certain plot points or character arcs can lead to super interesting conversations that’ll have you all engaged. If books or sitting in front of the screen isn’t your cup-of-tea, then create a club based around a key hobby of yours! It could be rock climbing, fishing, or exploring new walking trails. You can group together every month or 2 and choose how to indulge in your shared hobbies.
5. A Big Annual Outing
How exciting is it to be able to mark that 1 date in your calendar that’s set aside for an epic outing? Out of all these epic best friend traditions, this one may well lead to the wildest of times! Okay, so this is the plan: every year, you and your best friends are going to get together in early January to look at which spectacles are on, find the most exciting prospect and block out that time slot – simple, easy, fun! Whether it’s front row seats at a fave artist’s concert, heading to a chaotic music festival, or owning the town with a night out, it should be something that your group will never forget. It’s your opportunity to let loose, unleash our inner party animals, and create memories. Over time you will perfect the art of turning something ‘pretty cool’ into an extraordinary escapade! The annual extravaganza will be a top highlight of every year to come.
6. Holiday Themed Get-Together
Getting together with your BFFs around the holidays is a great tradition to start! A lot of the time it can be difficult to spend time with your closest group of friends on days like Christmas or Thanks Giving because so many of us head back to our home town to be with family, and sometimes it’s a matter of getting through that long list of people to see. So, that’s why it is awesome to plan a themed lunch or dinner near the holidays. Our friend group often organise Friendsmas! Don’t cringe at the name, you know it works well 😂We book a weekend to gather at a friend’s house, bring a plate of delicious food and treat it like it really is the 25th of December! Christmas crackers, X-mas outfits and all the rest of the festivities. Sounds like your idea of a great gathering? Call your friends and make a start to it this year!
7. Crazy Craft Night
No, nuh-uh. This isn’t any ordinary arts ‘n’ crafts night. Your annual crazy craft night is going to be a day spent with your closest friends, making the most interesting and hilarious goodies, enjoying yum snacks and forming unforgettable memories. There is so much potential with this best friend tradition. You could crack out the sewing machine to make cute tote bags, design themed wine glasses to enjoy a glass of pinot from later in the day and so much more. (Karo at Craftsy Hacks has plenty of great ideas – 47 Fun Craft Projects, Craftsy Hacks). It’s fun to pair this event with a significant milestone too. For example, making gifts for the bride-to-be at a bridal party!
8. The Photo
We’re not talking about just taking any photo with your besties, we are talking about taking THE photo. Start this tradition soon, because the more of these photos you have, the better! What you need to do first is pick a place, an outfit and time of day for a beautiful photography session. At the end of your initial session you will no doubt have a favourite pic from the lot. That photo becomes THE photo! Each year you and the besties are going to come back to that same spot on the same day (or nearest possible day) and recreate the magic of your first one. It is so cool to have these photos to look back on. You can see how much you’ve all grown. It’s a wonderful way of reminiscing while having a giggle too!
9. Yearly Retreat
Of course, this could not possibly be left off of our list of best friend traditions. A yearly retreat with your bestest of friends creates amazing memories. If you are fortunate enough, one of your BFFs might have a family holiday home on the coast to visit. If not, it can be fun finding a cute Airbnb together and making that your place to call home for a week each year! Whether it is a cabin by a stunning lake, a batch by the beach or (if the bank balance permits it) an overseas getaway, these holidays will always be special. It isn’t actually about where you stay – it’s about the company! This weekend or week is your time of the year to kick your feet up with friends and have a blast!
10. Goal Setting Session
Not many best friend traditions are as meaningful than this one. Goal setting is super important, and it can be quite difficult on your own. That’s exactly why a goal setting session with your bestie or besties can be so helpful. Bounce ideas off of each other and challenge one another’s ideas. Having the perspectives and support of your closest friends gives some comfort in creating goals. On top of that, it also serves as a healthy form of accountability. Since you’re sharing your goals with friends, you will feel extra motivated to achieve what you’ve set out to do. Another angle you can take is setting goals for each other. It can be really useful to have the people who know you best set some goals for you when you’re stuck. Here’s the extra touch for this tradition: Write down your goals on a small card and tie them around a small bottle of wine or bubbles. When you reach that goal, crack that bottle open and enjoy it with those incredible friends of yours.
That’s it for the 10 best friend traditions that you need to try!
Of these 10 excellent best friend traditions, which will you start with? Extra tip: It’s great to combine some of these ideas. For example, #6 and #8 (take a pic in your X-mas outfits) or #9 and #10 (set goals during your retreat). Your best friend traditions are going to become a core part of your best friendships, and it’s going to be awesome!
