Sauce’s very saucy Valentine’s Day Gift Guide 2023
For so many years, I’ve been living through Valentine’s Day all wrong. I’m either scrambling to find someone to wine/dine/69 me, or I’m at home balls-deep in a group chat spewing all sorts of nonsense about how much the celebration makes my skin crawl.
And it’s because I’ve let it get under my skin at a superficial level instead of seeing it for what it is and loving that. I wrote a semi-scathing editor’s note about Valentine’s Day in 2021. I was particularly moody that year - let me be. As a writer, I think it’s important to reflect and take stock of where you were, where you are now and where you want to go. And I think, as writers, articulating this cadence to our audience is where we find that sweet spot. The G Spot, baby. Your North Star won’t always stay in the same galaxy, your opinions and feelings, things you believed to once be true, can and will change.
I wrote: “You’re allowed to feel alone, unloveable and lost. It’s all valid, you’re not crazy. Because a celebration that thrives on isolating a majority of people is a celebration for some and a reminder for others… somewhere between getting sucked up in the social media love vacuum or drowning your sorrows in your third bottle of cheap prosecco, you forgot why you’re single. You forgot your freedom.”
And I think that whole segment is twisted and, to be honest, basic. I missed the whole fucking point of Valentine’s Day. Because if I have learnt anything over the last few years, it’s a) how to think just a touch more critically, b) how love comes packaged in so many different forms and that the cookie-cutter boyfriend/girlfriend/whatever relationship approach this Day has become synonymous with is, well, just one shape. Valentine’s Day has no boundaries; you can colour around the edges and draw love hearts in the corners of the page if you so wish. It’s about appreciating love in all its damn glory. I love so many people. At any given time, I am in six platonic relationships that require my undivided attention, and I am grateful that I have found people on this Earth that I’d trust with my wee little heart. I think honouring the concept of giving your all to someone other than yourself is a special moment in the year, one we should all hold close to our hearts. What’s life without love?
I’ve rounded up an assortment of gifts this Valentine’s Day for those people who keep the twinkle dancing in your eyes. Or you might just find a gift for yourself; whatever works for you works for me.
As long as you promise to love without reason and to love deep, Saucettes x
Diptyque Candle Roses
Image - Anastasia Kolesnichenko
Recommendations - Liam Sharma & Zeenat Wilkinson
