As holiday traditions go, it might not be Norman Rockwell enough to make the cover of a Hallmark card. But a gathering that has graced the Garfields’ Christmas calendar for nearly two decades returned this past Saturday night to remind us again of the importance of friendship.

I hope there’s a tradition in your holiday life – something that happens every Christmas like clockwork – to remind you of life’s most important lessons.

Each season dating back to 1992, my wife and I share a dinner out with our friends, Joe and Jan. We’ve known Joe since he and I worked together in 1980-81 at The Shelby Daily Star. Joe and Jan found each other a little later in life, marrying in 1992. That’s how we know when our Christmas tradition began: The first time we met Jan was over a Christmas season dinner that year. Each December evening, we reminisce over past dinners, though we can never seem to remember all the restaurants we have frequented. We think our first dinner together was at The Epicurean, the long-lost Charlotte landmark on East Boulevard. Each year we get together, we give ourselves a collective kick in the pants for not writing down every place we’ve lingered over a meal.

Wherever we have gathered, we share delicious food and even more delicious conversation. We try to get together between Christmas dinners, but you know how that is. Life’s just way too busy. And so, at Christmas, we catch up on our families, jobs, elderly mothers, their grandchildren, our children, old movies, new movies we want to see. We share our common joys, and our common challenges. We talk about the joints we’ve outlived – The Meeting House, The Chateau to name two. We rate (again) the other places we’ve frequented – Arooji’s, Toscana, Upstream, Carpe Diem, McCormick and Schmick’s, Beef and Bottle. I know I’m missing a bunch, like I said, we should have written them all down!

But mostly we reconnect.

We sustain this friendship that spans our adult lives.

We hold onto what’s most important about the past, and the present.

And as we say our good-byes in front of yet another restaurant – Joe likes to get home early – we give ourselves something loving to look forward to next Christmas.