Valentine’s Day is coming up on February 14th, and although it’s a perfectly fine holiday, and we totally dig the chocolate, Red Hots, and candy hearts, we also love the idea of celebrating friendship. We’ve had Galentine’s/Palentine’s Day celebrations at the studio, and being in a room with so many wonderful groups of friends has been a real bucket-filler on those days. We even have a full palette of colors celebrating the Palentine’s / Galentine’s / Valentine’s Day holiday cluster.
Why Galentine’s Day? It’s no surprise to anyone who knows us that the Knitted Wit team are big fans of the television show Parks and Recreation. Leslie Knope is our secret best friend, and we are all huge fans of the whole Parks and Rec team and the ridiculous situations they continually get themselves into. Years ago, we started celebrating Galentine’s Day just like Leslie, with a small group of crafty friends, and our observation of the holiday grew from there.
Galentine’s Day is observed on February 13th, the day before Valentine’s Day, and it’s a day to celebrate your friends. As originally conceived on Parks and Rec, it’s a day to celebrate your female friendships. We’ll let Leslie tell us, as she says it best:
“Every February 13, my lady friends and I leave our husbands and our boyfriends at home, and we just come and kick it, breakfast-style. Ladies celebrating ladies. It’s like Lilith Fair, minus the angst. Plus frittatas.”
So then why Palentine’s Day? We are all about celebrating our friends, but there aren’t only ladies that benefit from a celebration of friendship. In our quest to be less gender-binary-esque and use more inclusive language, we started celebrating Palentine’s Day, and it just plain makes the most sense. We think Leslie herself would agree that opening the circle to include MORE friends on a day custom-made to celebrate non-romantic love is the best ever idea.
Whatever of the days you celebrate, we hope love and respect (and chocolate and yarn) are at the top of your ‘entine’s Day celebrations!