FOR the past, let’s think, 20 years I’ve been using Valentine’s Day as a way to celebrate my female friends and our friendships. A wee card, a wee present, some flowers. I thought I was doing something unique, but every week comes a new reminder that there’s no such thing as original thought.
While my annual lady celebration has never really taken off, I’ve seen increasing mentions lately of something called Galentine’s Day. I assumed it was nought but someone’s idea of a jolly pun. In actual fact, it’s a real thing, in as much as once a day has a Hallmark card made for it, it becomes real.
Leslie Knope, of the US sitcom Parks and Recreation, stole my idea. The Americans have form: Benjamin Franklin, say, pilfering from Jonathan Swift for Poor Richard’s Almanack. But getting antsy about who was first is not the sisterly spirit of Galentine’s Day, so I’ll move on.
For the past eight years - no, I had no idea either - women have been celebrating Galentine’s Day on February 13 thanks to a Parks and Rec episode in which our heroine Leslie distributes gifts to her favourite females over brunch. It’s the best day of the year, she claims. I’d be inclined to agree. I tried my best to have a ladies celebrating ladies day take off but it seems celebrity is needed to develop an idea from grassroots to national feast-day levels. Let’s call it teamwork, I’m not precious.
Valentine’s Day has certainly come a long way from when men and women were paired up during the Lupercalia festival and the gents would slap ladies with the hides of sacrificed goats. Now people scoff at Valentine’s Day as an overblown, hyper-commercial nonsense putting undue pressure on couples and stigmatising single people. Inexplicably, these are usually the self-same folk who love a wedding. I’d hate to see Galentine’s Day go the same way as its associate but a little more publicity seems needed.
At friends’ recent weddings I listened to the fathers-of-the-brides talk about their daughters and detail all the wonderful, quirky things about them. Having neither father nor intent to wed, it set me thinking about how we don’t make enough of a habit of spontaneous praise. You have to wait for headline events to hear your most important people pay tribute to the best bits of your friends.
It was the Scotswoman of the Year Awards in Glasgow on Thursday night and that, too, was a wonderful opportunity to hear women praised.
My adoration for Galentine’s Day - besides the opportunity for brunch - is that it’s not about waiting until a milestone event. Remarkable achievements are not necessary. It’s simply about thanking your friends. We idolise and reward romantic love. Signing a contract - a marriage certificate - to formalise romantic love will earn you presents, praise and even a tax break. Friendships can last longer than relationships and be far more supportive and enriching, yet the careful nurturing of platonic love goes uncelebrated and unremarked.
A 60-year friendship is a wonderful thing but it won’t earn you a card from the Queen. Women value their friends but they don’t stop to appreciate them in the way they do with romantic partners. Leslie gives her friends “a bouquet of hand crocheted flower pens, a mosaic portrait... made from the crushed bottles of your favourite diet soda and a personalised 5000-word essay of why you are all so awesome.”
Your average friend is probably too busy to crush bottles of Irn Bru but are they too busy to tell you you’re a beautiful land-mermaid? I think not. There’s a year to get ready for the next Galentine’s Day: let’s get to work.
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