‘We don’t want it to ever stop’: how to make and maintain a friendship tradition

Sylvia Fitzgerald (left) and Margaret, who have been friends for 60 years, have a cup of tea and butter cake at Sylvia’s home in Charlestown, NSW. Most Saturday nights they go to the cinema together. Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian

Every December for nearly a decade, Mahir Mahbub and his friends meet in a halal steakhouse to enjoy all-you-can-eat ribs and wings, and exchange gifts.

“We’d all been friends for years but didn’t have many traditions around the holidays. None of us are really religious, despite all being raised in Islamic households,” Mahbub says. The group of nine, all in their late 20s and 30s, have been exchanging gifts and eating countless wings together since 2012. Gifts over the years have included everything from watches to bottle openers and, in 2007, a scooter that was given as the result of an old high school bet between two friends, Faz and Zid. It’s a Secret Santa, basically – but it has come to hold a special place in the friends’ hearts.