By Elyssa Phan, Staff Writer & Photographer
Valentine’s Day is coming up in a few days. Despite its purpose of celebrating love, many high schoolers tend to hate this day simply because they’re not in a romantic relationship, often dubbing this holiday as #SingleAwarenessDay. However, Valentine’s Day is more than just a celebration of whether you have a date or not. It’s a celebration of all types of love: a celebration of the sake of love.
One of my favorite memories from elementary school was Valentine’s Day, when we each had our own little mailbox and our classmates walked around dropping little goodies into our boxes. What made that so great was that everybody felt the love. This year, let’s bring that back. Take a day out of your week to celebrate the existence of love itself with your gals, your bros, your family, anyone that you love!
Preparation ♡
Start off by creating a small Valentine’s box so your gals can drop in their gifts. You can use tissue boxes or shoe boxes; make pouches out of construction paper. The choice is yours! And make sure to go all out decorating – stickers, glitter, markers, paint, you name it! Take a break from your mundane schedule and just release your inner kid.
To find some cute small gifts for your gals, hit the Dollar Store, Target’s dollar section, or some kind of thrift store. You can find so many lovely and inexpensive goodies here. And if you’re a little broke this month, handmade gifts are just as great – if not even better, as they are much more personal! A favorite among friendship-gifts is a photo album documenting your guys’ most memorable moments together.
Food ♡
Food is the backbone to any party, so make sure to have your menu stocked with hearty foods. You can find a lot of cool Valentines-themed dishes on Pinterest. And if you’re feeling a little lazy to hit the grocery store, simply mold whatever food you have in your kitchen into heart shapes to make it instantly Valentine-themed. Some of the foods my friends and I made were English muffins topped with strawberry whipped cream cheese in the shape of a heart and some blueberry crepes made out of scratch.
To make it even more exciting, you can have your friends each make a dish for the event on the day of. That way, the hostess doesn’t have to drown in responsibilities, while you can each get creative with a dish.
Activities ♡
On the day of Galentines, start off by dropping your goodies into your friends’ mailboxes. Then, spend the rest of the day just hanging out with your friends. You can make friendship bracelets or create some art or have a cook-off. Just do anything you guys find fun and bask in the love.
Have fun! And have a lovely Valentine’s day everyone, date or no date.
