The holiday rush has started with Thanksgiving just behind us and Christmas all ready to come in its magic sleigh. You are already looking for Christmas gifts for your family members and kids, but in this holiday chase, where are your faraway friends?

You worked so hard to build those friendship ties in high school and college and perhaps even at workplace, but with time you are slowly losing touch with them.

Whether it is a change of jobs, or town or country, this holiday season make a difference. Thanks to the technology that surrounds us, it is easier to connect with our friends than ever before. Check out these different technology avatars around us that keep us connected all the time.

All that is needed is a bit of effort from your end.

Video chat to keep in touch

Video chat is one of the fantastic things that you can do to connect with your friends on this Christmas and New Year. You can use free video conferencing services like Skype with friends whom you haven’t seen in ages. All you have to do is get online and see each other face-to-face. This will allow you to share special events like children’s birthday parties, celebrations like Christmas, New Year and more. If you have a group of friends that you want to visit all at once, then you need to pay a small fee and you can sign up for a group video conferencing and visit all of them together. You can do this every week or as often as you want.

Social Networks of course…

You definitely know about social network sites like Facebook and Twitter. All you really need to do is to visit these sites regularly. You can set a page for friends only, so that your personal information is not available to the general public. With networks like Facebook, you can share photos, videos and let people know what is the latest happening on your world. Other than this you can also enjoy chatting, as it is a part of the free service and you can get into an endless conversation at no additional cost. Social networking has made keeping in touch so easy.

Start a blog with your friends

Today, writing and maintaining a blog is very easy. It can be done at absolutely no cost and you can add your friends as users to keep them posted. Also during festivals like Christmas, you can easily post your thoughts, ideas, pictures of the festival and keep your blog updated and stay connected with friends at the same time.

Send a round robin letter

If you are not too much in favor of connecting with your friends through Facebook and blogs, then you can even work on the concept of round robin letter to wish Christmas greetings to your friends on this holiday. The concept of this letter is by you starting to write a letter sharing whatever new is happening in your world. You can add photos if you like. Send this letter to the first friend on your list. This friend will read your letter, add something happening in her life as well as photos and then sends it to the next person on the list, who once more adds something to the robin letter. This way each person will add something to the letter and the last person in this circle will send it back to the original reader. Then you can start all over again and send it out to someone who got missed out or to add something more.

So, don’t let Christmas become an excuse to disconnect with your friends this year, but a reason to come close once more.