We bought two pomegranates when stocking up for Thanksgiving. Then in the last store run I bought a third because Kai, my seven-year-old, saw it and suggested buying it. Since he was managing to hold it together on this last-minute errand on a dark winter afternoon, I didn’t want to harp on pragmatics and risk him melting down. Besides, I love pomegranates. What better way to revel in a lazy the vacation week than to take the long time needed to free each sculpted jewel locked inside them?

Nobody else in my family eats pomegranate. We all like the juice—we were using a pomegranate glaze for the turkey, coincidentally. But even Kai, who had urged me to buy that ball of ruby goodness, now tells me, “I don’t eat seeds. You know that about me.” So I peeled two of them late Friday night, after the rest of the family was asleep, ate some standing at the kitchen counter, and put the rest in the fridge.

The experience wasn’t quite as depressing as it sounds. How could it be when I was crunching a mouthful of tart brightness? But it reminds me that life’s simple pleasures feel much more joyful when shared. Sure, those pomegranate rubies tasted good that night. And I now have a stash of juicy cheer to draw from every time I open the fridge. Yet the times I’ve really enjoyed pomegranates are the times spent peeling and eating them with friends: the time my college buddy Marlene and I made a terrific mess on a coffee house table butchering the second pomegranate I’d ever seen; the time my wife Karen and I culled seeds to put in a New Year’s punch to drink with our fellow dorm parents.

What is it about camaraderie that breathes life into what would otherwise seem ordinary or pointless? Soon after my high school friend Joe Stillwell got his license, he and I used to get in his parents’ car and “go idling” in empty parking lots. We would turn the music up, the visors down, the wipers on, and the rearview mirror upside down. Then he’d take his foot off the brake and let the car idle slowly forward, cruising around the lot while we sang and laughed. Silly? Yes. Would I have ever done it alone? Of course not. But with a friend—life doesn’t get much better.