Hey, Blog Buddies!
It’s always good to be friends—but today it’s even better since it’s World Friendship Day! What fun is a trip to the movie theater when you’re going all by yourself? Isn’t a hike a lot more fun when there’s somebody else with you to share the experience? You can’t play Hide-and-Go-Seek without a friend!
Making friends comes as natural as your ABC’s. A couple months ago I posted a series on this Blog about the ease of making friends at summer camp. Whether you’re a little shy or dreadfully terrified of talking to others, once you’re there at camp, you don’t even think about it. You’ll naturally start talking to other kids and become fast friends with them.
It’s just a given. That’s what happens at camp.
But camp isn’t the only place where it’s easy to make friends! You can do it at school, at the beach, at the park, at your brother’s birthday party…the world is brimming with friendly, smiling faces, all ripe for the befriending.
Though the United Nations did not officially recognize World Friendship Day until 2011, the history of this day dates back all the way to 1919 when the greeting card company Hallmark first founded it. It wasn’t an international holiday at that point—just a day Hallmark invented. The day was meant for friends to send each other greeting cards noting the friendship between one another.
When World War II came, it extinguished the market and a little after 1940, the day had gone completely extinct!
It was over 50 years later in 1998 that the United Nations (very curiously) appointed Winnie the Pooh as the World’s Ambassador of Friendship. And by 2011, Friendship Day was resurrected now as an officially recognized international holiday.
Happy World Friendship Day to everyone and, as always, thanks for reading!
- John