February is here and that means Valentine’s Day. It’s the holiday all about love, but the most common misconception of it is that it’s only meant for those in romantic relationships. However, there’s no place that says that. The true reason for Valentine’s Day is to show love to everyone, platonically and romantically.
Personally, my favorite way to celebrate is with a couple of my best friends and just enjoying each other’s company. It’s become a tradition that is now called Galentine’s Day (or Palentine’s Day to keep everything gender neutral). If you’re looking to celebrate this way and are struggling to find things to do, here is a list of 10 activities you can do.
1. Build your own bouquet
Flowers are a must for Valentine’s Day. It’s nice to receive them from anyone, and even better when you get to build your own bouquets with some of your best friends. To set up this activity, you’ll need various flowers, greenery for filler, scissors, ribbon, and vases for everyone to use. Everyone gets to pick their own arrangement and show off their individual style through their choices. Once everyone has made their choices, trim the stems at an angle before arranging them. Larger flowers should be the focal point and then add smaller flowers and the greenery around them.
Finish each bouquet by wrapping the stems with ribbon so nothing falls out of place. From there, stick your flowers in the vases and then you each have your own personalized bouquets for Valentine’s Day.
2. Cookie decorating
If your group has a collective sweet tooth, cookie decorating would be an amazing idea. Before the day of the event, make some sugar cookies in the shape of hearts, lips, rectangles, x’s and o’s, and flowers.
On the day, set up an area with different colored royal icing, sprinkles, edible glitter, and edible markers. Then, decorate your cookies as love letters, regular hearts, conversation hearts, roses, kissy lips, etc. Really have fun and don’t worry about them looking perfect. As long as they taste good, then everything is perfect. Make sure to follow the directions on the icing packaging to know how long to let it dry before you eat them.
3. Glass cup painting
Painting glass cups offers a creative way to make personalized keepsakes that everyone will actually use after the event. What you’ll need are plain glass cups or mugs, glass paint markers or enamel paint, optional stencils for those who want guidance, and rubbing alcohol for prep work.
Start by cleaning the cups/mugs thoroughly with rubbing alcohol to make sure the paint sticks properly, then sketch your designs lightly with a washable marker first if you would like to plan it out before painting. Consider painting names, fun patterns, or matching designs so everyone can coordinate. From there, paint your design carefully and let it dry for 24 hours. Once the paint is dry, follow the baking instructions on the paint bottle. Stick the glasses in the oven to bake for however long it says.
4. Talk and paint
The “talk and paint” concept perfectly captures what Galentine’s Day is all about—spending time with your friends while doing something relaxing at the same time. This activity involves setting table space for each person with canvases, acrylic paints, brushes, cups of water, paper towels, and pencils. You can pick a simple theme that everyone follows but creates their own version of or let everyone freestyle completely.
The main idea of this activity is catching up with each other while making something with no pressure for perfection. The fun from this is that you get to keep your hands busy while allowing for deep conversations, not even noticing how quickly the time is passing.
5. Bedazzling
Bedazzling brings out everyone’s inner little girl — you know that version of you that just wanted everything to be sparkly and pretty. This activity works with phone cases, hairbrushes, head bands, claw clips, or honestly anything. You’ll need rhinestones, gems in various colors and sizes, fabric glue or a hot glue gun, and tweezers for precise placement.
Start by planning your design on the item. You can sketch it out first or freehand it, depending on your comfort level. Apply small dots of glue to where you want your gems. Be careful to do small sections at a time so your glue doesn’t dry before you can place the gems. Then, use the tweezers to carefully place the gems exactly where you want them. You can also pick up a rhinestone picker tool kit that includes the picker, the sticky clay, and a tray. Make sure you let everything dry completely before using any of the items. To really seal the items, feel free to use a spray acrylic sealer.
Consider personalizing items with initials, hearts, bows, or matching designs. The great thing about bedazzling is that it works for all skill levels, even simple designs will look cool in the light. If it was up to me, everything would be bedazzled.
6. Brunch
A brunch is an activity with the least amount of pressure. All you need to do is eat some delicious food and hang out with your best friends. If you’re doing it at home, you can have a menu that includes a juice and/or coffee bar, a pancake/waffle station, avocado toast, eggs, bacon, sausage, fruit, and pastries. You can also make it potluck style if you don’t want the workload to all fall on the host. Add special touches like heart-shaped foods, pink and red decorations throughout the space, and festive plates and napkins. If you want it to feel extra fancy, set the table with flowers and candles. Brunch naturally encourages conversation and creates a comfortable environment where everyone can relax and enjoy each other’s company.
7. Spa Night
Transform your home into your own personal spa with face masks for various different skin concerns, nail polish in fun colors, cute matching pajamas and fluffy robes, calming music, and scented candles. Plan activities like facials, mani-pedis, hair masks, etc., anything that is relaxing for everyone. Set up a comfy seating area with a movie in the background and just fun music.
If you want a DIY activity to do, make sugar scrubs or face masks together using simple ingredients like honey, oatmeal, brown sugar, avocado, turmeric, and coconut oil. This gives everyone something to do while they wait for their face mask to dry or letting their hair mask sit. It also gives everyone something to bring home as a little keepsake.
8. Friendship Trivia Night
A friendship trivia night celebrates your shared history and inside jokes while testing how well you really know each other. This activity requires more preparation before the day of the event. Create questions about each friend, including their favorites, first memories together, embarrassing moments, and “who’s most likely to” scenarios.
Decide whether to divide into teams for a more competitive atmosphere or play individually if you have a smaller group, and award points for correct answers throughout the game. To keep things organized, create categories like “How well do you know [Name]? or memories from specific trips or events, friendship history—including how you all met and current favorites.
You can offer small prizes for winners like candy or face masks, but the real important thing to take away from this activity is to learn things you might not have known about each other and reminisce on past memories.
9. Rom-Com Marathon
Nothing says Galentine’s Day like watching your favorite rom-coms with your closest friends. Plan your movie line up with favorites like Clueless, 10 Things I Hate About You, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Legally Blonde, or other classics. Create a comfy area with pillows and blankets piled on the couch and floor, and make snacks and drinks for everyone to enjoy during the movie. Set up a popcorn bar with various toppings like butter, caramel, cheese powder, and candy mix-ins, along with other treats like candy, pizza, cookies, and cupcakes. There’s no pressure to this activity — just sit down and relax, laugh, and cry together as a group.
10. Vision Board Making
Vision board making turns your hangout into an inspiring and meaningful experience that sets intentions for the year ahead. You’ll need poster boards or cork boards for everyone, a large collection of magazines covering various topics, scissors, glues sticks, markers in different colors, stickers, and printed quotes and photos. Your boards should resonate with your goals for the year.
Start by having everyone set intentions for the year ahead, taking a few minutes to reflect on what you want to happen and what you want to work on for yourself. Then, cut out images and words that represent your goals and dreams, whether they’re related to career advancement, travel destinations, relationship wants, health goals, etc. Making these boards together will help you all keep each other accountable and support each other.
All in all, Galentine’s Day is about celebrating the friends who support you, make you laugh, and stand by you through everything you go through. It is completely up to you how many of these activities to do. You can even combine some of them to make a big activity. What’s really important though, is that you have fun hanging out with the people you love. Everyone deserves to be loved and appreciated. It doesn’t matter if you do it before or after Valentine’s Day, just take the time to celebrate with the people you love and who love you.