Our theme for February is actually a challenge: write a piece without using first person pronouns (I, me, we, etc.)

“It’s like Lilith Fair, minus the angst. Plus frittatas.” –Leslie Knope

PAWNEE, Ind.– Today, February 13, marks a very special holiday for women: Galentine’s Day. While the fourteenth of February is typically reserved for the celebration of romantic love, the day before has gained considerable traction as the special time to spend with your favorite women over a meal of waffles, omelettes, and mimosas.

So what is Galentine’s Day, exactly?

“Galentine’s Day is about celebrating lady friends,” said the holiday’s founder, Leslie Knope of Pawnee, Indiana. “We leave our husbands and boyfriends at home and just come and kick it breakfast-style.”

The holiday first gained widespread attention in 2010, but its origins came much earlier, according to Ms. Knope. She claims that female friendship is the cornerstone of this great nation, and as such she imagines her foremother heroes, such as Eleanor Roosevelt and Abigail Adams, held similar annual gatherings. (Further investigations did not bring up any evidence to support these claims.)  

Screenshot 2016-02-13 08.50.08Ms. Knope also claims that “it’s the best day of the year” and that “it should be a national holiday.” Though Galentine’s Day has not yet reached national holiday status (despite Ms. Knope’s many emails to Congress concerning the issue), it has inspired women around the country to celebrate female friendship in its various forms. Both local and national media outlets have been promoting the holiday with Galentine’s Day cards, party ideas, and playlists.

In addition to breakfast food, gift giving is also a key component of any official Galentine’s Day celebration. Ms. Knope’s list of example gifts includes homemade heart cookies with empowering messages, scarves with everyone’s airbrushed pictures, bouquets of hand-crocheted flower pens,  mosaic portraits of each friend made from the crushed bottles of their favorite diet soda, and personalized 5,000 word essays of why your friends are all so awesome, among other things.

For any men who feel excluded given the fact that Galentine’s Day celebrations by definition do not include them, they might want to consider throwing a Palentine’s Day party, which can be for men only or for a mixed gender crowd, and which one can only assume is inferior to Galentine’s Day, according to Ms. Knope.

For those of you women who are just now discovering Galentine’s Day and do not have time to plan a party on such short time, do not fret. While the calendar reads February 13, every day has the potential to be Galentine’s Day. In the words of Ms. Knope, “any time a group of women get together for brunch, we embody the spirit of the holiday.”

Photo credit: Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls

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