What is Galentine's Day?

When is Galentine's Day?

Always February 13, whatever day of the week it lands on. In 2027 it's a Saturday, so brunch can run as long as it likes, and Valentine's Day follows on Sunday. Need a second excuse later in the year? National Best Friend Day is in June.

Where Galentine's Day comes from

The name comes from "Galentine's Day," the 16th episode of the second season of Parks and Recreation, which aired on February 11, 2010. In it, the main character explains her yearly tradition: every February 13 she and her friends get together for breakfast, "ladies celebrating ladies." Mental Floss calls the episode the first documented source for the name mentalfloss.com/holidays/the-unexpected-origins-of-galentines-day.

The word is a mash-up of gal and Valentine. Viewers borrowed the idea for their own friends, and it stuck. The Cambridge Dictionary now defines it as a day, usually February 13, "when people celebrate female friendship by spending time with and sometimes giving presents to their female friends" dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/galentine-s-day. Not bad for a joke from a half-hour comedy about a city parks department.

Galentine's Day ideas

The original was breakfast with friends, and that's still the easiest version. Pick one of these and invite the people who would help you move.

• Breakfast for dinner. Waffles, a fruit plate and a big pot of coffee at 7 p.m. Nobody has to get up early or dress up.
• The compliment jar. Everyone writes one specific thing they admire about each friend. Read them out at the end, anonymously, and watch who cries first.
• A swap. Clothes, books or houseplant cuttings: everyone brings three things and leaves with three different ones.
• Valentines in 45 minutes. Paper, glue, old magazines and a timer. Each friend makes one for the person on her left.
• Rom-com bingo. Pick a movie, hand out cards with the cliches (an airport sprint, a makeover, rain at the worst moment) and mark them off as they happen.
• A class you'd never take alone: pottery, pickleball, cooking, or a dance class where nobody is any good.
• Walk, then pastries. A long morning walk that ends at a bakery, for the friends who'd rather move than sit.
• At work. Lunch on February 13 with the coworkers who make the job bearable, or something sweet left on the desk of the one who keeps everyone sane.
• Long distance. A video-call breakfast at the same hour, both of you making the same recipe and comparing the results on camera.
• The playlist. Each friend adds three songs that remind her of the group, and the playlist is named after your worst-ever group chat.
• Moms and daughters. It isn't only for single women in their twenties. A Galentine's brunch with your mom, your daughter and your grandma counts.
• A night in with a project: a puzzle, a scrapbook of the friendship, or finally printing the photos from that trip.

What to write to a friend on Galentine's Day

Keep it short and specific: one thing you love about her, one shared joke. A few to borrow, and more lines for friends in our Valentine's Day messages. If her birthday is coming up too, we have birthday wishes for a best friend.

• Happy Galentine's Day to the only person who knows my coffee order and my worst ex.
• Thank you for every "I'm outside" text. You are always outside.
• If we were in a rom-com, you'd be the best friend who should have been the lead.
• Happy Galentine's Day. I'd split the last fry with you, and I don't say that lightly.
• Twenty years of friendship and we still laugh at the same three jokes. Here's to a fourth.
• No flowers, no chocolate, just a note that you're great. Fine, also chocolate.
• You've seen every phase I went through and kept the photos as leverage. Happy Galentine's Day.

How we made a card for your best friend

We made a card for this exact day: Brunch Besties. Two friends at a pink diner booth clink tall glasses of pink lemonade next to a towering stack of heart-shaped pancakes. In the video the tower starts to lean, both friends lunge and catch it at the same moment, freeze, look at the camera and burst out laughing.

Every idea is tried many times on our test family (twelve people and two pets, all invented) and graded on whether it still looks like them, whether it's funny and whether it fits. Brunch Besties was tested on Sofia, 30, and Denise, 58, who have never met. Their faces came out right. The pancakes did not: towering came back as a sensible stack with one small heart on top, and our own notes gave the picture a 2 out of 5 for funny. The joke only works in the video, so the card is still in the drawer. It came with a rule, too: the word Galentine's started on a TV comedy, so it can appear in an article like this one, but never in a card's name or caption.

So for Galentine's we point people to the Rom-Com Poster. You and your friend stand back to back, arms crossed, on a glossy early-2000s movie poster under a big red title that reads FINE, I LOVE YOU, with the tagline "Two people. One remote." It was written for couples. It works better for the friend who always has the remote. In the video a rom-com rain shower falls on just the two of you while the background stays bone dry, and you both crack up.

The poster asks one of you to roll your eyes while hiding a smile. That turned out to be the hardest thing on the card: take after take smiled politely at the camera, and one take winked instead. Add a photo of you and one of her; your message goes on the card under the picture.