This year, we’re taking back Valentine’s Day
This year, we’re taking back Valentine’s Day
What if Feb. 14 isn’t about romance but rather about showing love to our friends and, most importantly, ourselves?
Valentine’s Day: the holiday that can make you feel like the star of a rom-com — or the tragic side character who gets left on read. But what if we stopped treating Feb. 14 as an all-or-nothing, love-it-or-hate-it affair? What if we quit measuring our worth by the presence (or absence) of a romantic partner? Maybe it’s time to reclaim the holiday for ourselves and our most stable loves in our lives: our friends.
Enter Galentine’s Day — the unofficial, yet far superior, February tradition. The term was first coined by Leslie Knope in Parks & Recreation, where she and her closest girlfriends gathered for brunch, celebrating the one kind of love that never goes out of style: friendship. “What’s Galentine’s Day?” Knope asks. “Oh, it’s only the best day of the year.” And honestly? She had a point.
Because real love isn’t just about couples and roses. It’s the friendships that have held you together through blackout nights and brutal breakups — the ones who’ve seen you at your messiest, your most heartbroken, and still text, “You alive?” the next morning. It’s about the roommate who instinctively knows your coffee order, the friend who hypes you up before a risky text, and the late-night drives that turn into therapy sessions.
More than anything, it’s about celebrating yourself — your growth, your resilience, and the fact that you made it through another year of navigating this wild, unpredictable thing called life.
And what better way to celebrate that than a little self-spoiling? Buy yourself that overpriced matcha from Salt City Coffee. That peptide lip tint? Add to cart. The Skims Valentine’s set? Consider it a love letter to yourself.
And if you’re really doing Galentine’s Day right, you’ll be with your people. The ones who don’t require small talk because they’ve already seen you ugly cry over a bad situationship. The ones who still make Valentine’s cards like we did in elementary school, because we all have a friend who keeps the card tradition alive. The ones who show up in heart-print pajamas, order takeout they know will ruin their stomachs, and stay up laughing until it hurts.
And of course, there’s always room to celebrate Galentine’s with matcha cookies and strawberries—because no night with your best people is complete without a sweet little treat. Pair it with a fun drink, whether it’s rosé, a matcha latte, or DIY heart-shaped cocktails, just for the aesthetic. Make a whole event out of it — queue up a nostalgic rom-com marathon, roll up your sleeves to cook homemade pizza, and munch on cookies straight from the oven.
My friend Peyton once said, “Friends are the loves of your life every day. They don’t need a holiday to be celebrated.” And honestly? She’s right. Maybe Valentine’s Day isn’t about finding and celebrating the one. Maybe it’s just another reminder that you’ve made it through another year — of loving yourself, of loving your friends, and of making it all up as you go. Because at the end of the day, the most important relationship you’ll ever have is the one with yourself. And that kind of love? It’s forever.