Why We Love Holiday Rituals and Traditions
  The mere thought of holiday traditions brings smiles to most people's faces and elicits feelings of sweet anticipation and nostalgia. Holiday rituals are bursting with sensory pageantry. The fireworks or flowers signal to all of our senses that this is no common occasion. Such a sensory feast helps create lasting rellctions of those occasions and marks them in our memory as special events worth cherishing, Indeed, there are plenty of reasons to Value family rituals. They can help us take a respite from the daily grind, enjoy festive meals and connect with our loved ones.
  Everyday life is stressful and full of uncertainty. Having a special time of the year when we know exactly what to do and how to do it provides a comfortable sense of structure,control and stbilit. Holiday traditions comprise rituals. The structured and repetitive actions in such rituals can act as a buffer against anxiety by making our world more predictable. For this reason, more people travel during the year end holidays. Gathering together from remote locations helps people leave their worries behind, and at the same time lets them reconnet with time-honored family raditionis.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The most impotant funcion of holiay rituals is their role in mainaining and strengthening family ties. In fact, for rlaives who live far apart, holiday ritvals may be the Glue that holds the family togeher. Rituals are a powerful marker of identity and group membership. Taking part in collective rituals creaes feelings of belonging and increased generosity toward other members of the group. It's no surprise, then, that spending the holidays with the in-laws for the first time is often regarded as a rite of passage a sign of true family membership.
Holiday rituals strengthen family harmony. Sure, we might need to take three flights to get there. And our uncle might get drunk and start an argument with his son-in-law again. But when we evaluate past experiences, we tend to remember the best moments and the last moments. In other words, our memory of the family holiday will mostly consist of all the joyful rituals, the good food, and the warm goodbye hugs (after our uncle made up with his son-in-law. After gtting back home, we'll have something to look forward to for next year.

                How to Make Friends
  What are friends for? This isn't a rhetorial question, but of essential concern for everybody. We might find friends extremely valuable in difficult situations. The truth is that friendship is always one of life's most important features, and one too ofen taken for granted.As a matter of fact, making friends requires time and effort, sometimes involving strategy.
  The human desire for companionship may be boundless, but research suggests that our
Social capital is finite- -we can handle only so many relationships at one time. Social
Scientists have used a number of ingenious approaches to gauge the size of people's social networks; these have returned estimates ranging from about 250 to about 5.500 people,though a Stanford thesis focusing excuivly on Franklin