
Small Ways to Show Love
I remember trying to make Valentines for all the kids in my fourth grade class. There were twenty of us, and I remember loving every minute of hand making each card. I knew my friend Jamie loved dogs, so she got dog stickers. Ashley loved to sing, so she got music notes. Hayden loved cats. The list goes on.
I feel like as I’ve gotten older the love for making gifts for my friends is still there, but the vibe I get from stores, websites, and social media is that buying expensive, showy gifts is better. The more money you spend the more you love the person. That isn’t true at all. I really do hate it that that’s the message I’m getting during a holiday all about human compassion.
Because my twenty Valentines in fourth grade has now evolved into a large group of college friends, I try to do small acts of kindness on Valentines day.
- Put a bag of chocolates in the offices for my student organizations
- Buy coffee for the few friends you have class with today
- You can always send a $5 Starbucks gift card via email to a friend, too!
- Make small personalized cards for friends and be a “Valentine’s fairy” by slipping them under their doors or into their backpacks
- Baking cookies
- Making your roommates dinner and having a girl’s (or guy’s) night in with each other
- Send friends a Snapchat all about how much you love them
- Tumblr Valentine’s Day memes are always great (especially when you spam a friend by sending a bunch at once)
- Some of my classmates have bought Dum Dums to class and passed them around (I haven’t done that because my classes are between 100-300 students each…that’s a lot of lollipops)
- Send your parents a hand written note on the back of a cute family photo
Those are just a few small ideas of how to share the love this Valentine’s Day. What are your plans?