Over the past few years, I have heard people talk about planning to celebrate Galentine’s Day with a few of their closest girlfriends. I was always so confused as I had no clue what Galentine’s Day was, where it came from and why people were celebrating it. Prior to researching the holiday for writing this article, I had thought wrongly that the holiday was a fruitless attempt for single girls to take back Valentine’s Day.
I have recently discovered that Galentine’s Day was coined by the character Leslie Knope in episode sixteen of season two of the television show “Parks and Recreation.” Leslie Knope describes the holiday as a day to celebrate close female friendship. Rather than being celebrated on the same day as Valentine’s Day, Galentine’s Day is celebrated a day earlier on February 13th.
Prior to coming to Kent State University, I experienced a friendship falling out and became even more excited to meet more friends at Kent. Within my first few days at Kent, I met my current friends and we were able to quickly bond over our common interests. Ever since we met, we have all been inseparable from each other.
With all of this in mind, now more than ever I want to celebrate Galentine’s Day with my friends as I desperately wanted to celebrate our friendship. I now understand why so many people feel the need to take part in this somewhat unofficial holiday as it is a way to celebrate our closest female friendships. While at the same time not asking those friends to have to split their time on Valentine’s Day between their friends and significant other. In a sense, there is some empowerment that Galentine’s Day occurs before Valentine’s Day almost signifying that our friendships can be more important than our romantic relationships.
I am going to be completely honest I had no clue prior to writing this article how people celebrate Galentine’s Day. I understand that many celebrate in different ways as the celebrations themselves depend upon who you are celebrating with.
However, after some endless scrolling on TikTok, Instagram and Pinterest, I have discovered that there are a few popular trends on how to celebrate Galentine’s Day. First, many people take part in baking some sweet treats such as cookies or cakes. I plan on baking some break-n-bake cookies as a college student living in a dorm so my options are limited. Other Galentine’s Day celebrating options that I think are college student friendly is Galentine’s Day card making. I am fully aware that this idea may seem cheesy at first; however, there are many ways you can make the cards original and memorable. Maybe feature some inside jokes within your cards, write some Valentine’s Day puns or recount some fond memories that you and your friends cherish.
The final college student-friendly idea I came up with was watching Rom-Coms or any feel-good movies. I love early 2000s Rom-Coms featuring Jennifer Lopez such as “Monster-In-Law” and “The Wedding Planner” so this seems like a no-brainer to me. However, I can understand if you would want to stick more with the theme of female friendship and opt for other movies such as “The Princess Dairies” and “Legally Blonde.”
There are plenty of other ways to celebrate Galentine’s Day besides the ideas that I mentioned so keep that in mind. With that being said just remember regardless of how you celebrate Galentine’s Day to celebrate it with your gals!