Why Friendship Day Matters in 2025: Meaning, traditions, and global roots
Friendship is a bond in several senses as powerful, if not more powerful, than familial bonds. To honour this precious bonding, the world celebrates a special day – Friendship Day.
Most nations, including India, celebrate Friendship Day on the first Sunday in the month of August, and for 2025, that falls on August 3.
History of Friendship Day
The concept of celebrating friendship existed prior to this UN formalisation. In America, the practice began in 1935 when the U.S. Congress declared the first Sunday of August as National Friendship Day. The move was made as an attempt to promote world harmony after the First World War.
This holiday was promoted by Joyce Hall, the founder of Hallmark Cards, and gained popularity during the 1930s when she encouraged the sale of friendship cards.
It initially met with disbelief, but the idea soon gained popularity and is now a widely celebrated day. Friendship Day, celebrated on the first Sunday of August in India, was highly popularised among youngsters and youth, thanks to Bollywood films in the early 1990s.
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Why celebrating Friendship Day is important
Friendship Day reminds us of the central role that friends play in our lives. A world that otherwise is divided by differences, conflicts, and alienation, celebrating friendships is not merely about message or gift giving. It is about cherishing the deep strength of knowledge, support, and human connection to bring a more empathetic and more accepting world.
Friends are our surrogate family. They give us a unique support system, a safe haven where we can relax enough to be ourselves without worrying about judgment.
They are the ones who celebrate with us in our victories, hear patiently our troubles, and stand with us firmly through life's many twists and turns. From the earliest years, when friendships teach us the lessons of caring and sharing, through adolescence, when friends are the best of all buddies with whom to ride the whirlwind of teen metamorphosis, and even in later life, friends fight off loneliness and bring the necessities of living into sunlight and fullness.
The day invites us to look at such valuable connections and to thank the positive that friendship brings into our lives. It honours the idea that friendship is a force for good, one that can overcome cultural differences and build mutual respect and understanding between people. The UN focus on engaging young people for community service, promoting international understanding and diversity, has the impact of emphasising this broader vision.
It is important more than ever now
In addition to the emotional value of not being lonely and having someone to lean on, friendship has important social and even medical implications. It fosters social interaction, broadens our understanding of the world through familiarity with culture, and even provides positive opportunities for networking. Science appears to indicate that healthier mental states, lower levels of depression and anxiety, and even healthier physical bodies and longer lifespans are the consequences of strong social relationships, such as those created through friendship.
Friendship Day reminds us to take time out for our friends—whether a quick telephone call, a message, a casual lunch, or an organised outing. It is also a day to renew long-standing friendships and develop new ones. It reminds us that building and nurturing these relationships is a process requiring effort, with equally great rewards.
Celebrations and traditions
Although the sentiment of celebrating Friendship Day is the same wherever it is observed, the way it is celebrated varies.
In India, for instance, a common and very popular practice is to sport friendship bands—coloured ribbons worn on the wrist as a sign of an eternally sealed bond. It is also a custom among many teenagers to wear white T-shirts on this day, autograph each other's shirts with signatures and messages, and thus create a friendship memento.
Presents in the form of cards, flowers, chocolates, and customised items are also exchanged.
All over the world, celebrations take the form of casual parties and get-togethers, or simply spending time together. Technology has also transformed the way people celebrate, with e-greetings, video messages, and social media posts becoming common ways to express love and gratitude. The medium may differ, but the message remains the same: to celebrate the joy, comfort, and strength that friends bring into our lives.
Friendship Day in 2025, on the 3rd of August in India, serves as a gentle reminder to cherish the friends who stand by us through thick and thin—the ones who add a little sparkle and a lot of meaning to life. It is a day to pay tribute to the silent assurances of support, the silly jokes that echo in our memories, and the unshakeable certainty that someone always has our backs. So invite your friends, remind them how much they are loved, and honour the colourful fabric of friendships that weave through our lives.
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