Flowers and movies and treats, oh my! In case you haven’t strolled through the seasonal aisle at a supermarket lately, love is in the air … and so is a ticking time bomb. Valentine’s Day is just three days away, but don’t be alarmed — in Carbondale, there’s places that can help. 

Whether you’re on the hunt for a gift for that special someone, searching for last-minute activities with your friends or planning a self-care night, here are five small ways to celebrate while supporting five small businesses. 

Buy flowers at Quick Magic Gardens

In ancient times, way before Joe bought Kathleen daises in “You’ve Got Mail,” roses were associated with Aphrodite and Venus, the Greek and Roman goddesses of love and beauty. Today, Valentine’s Day is the largest holiday for florists, like Mary Keller and Jessica Shippel at Quick Magic Gardens, a shop located in the Grand Avenue mall on the southeast side of Carbondale. 

“They keep coming,” Shippel, who serves as Keller’s assistant florist, said of holiday orders. “They’re not stopping and they seem to be, rather than slowing down, they’re getting more and more.”

For the frantic last-minute shoppers, the staff have stocked bouquets in the store’s front cooler. They’re also offering a 20% discount for any customers who visit in person, and $30 bouquets of eight to 10 stems for students at SIU and John A. Logan College. 

Year round, Quick Magic Gardens works to spread love with other local businesses. Co-owner Keller said their greeting cards are made by artists at Hawthorne Art, a design firm in Carbondale. 

If customers bring a receipt from Quick Magic Gardens to Castle Perilous, a game and comic store, they’ll receive a 15% discount off their purchase. Quick Magic Gardens also plays “community bouquet toss,” a game in which they design a basket and bouquet inspired by a business and post a video on social media with hints about where it is located. From there, every purchase made at said business will be entered into a raffle for the products. 

If you need suggestions for what to buy, Keller and Shippel have you covered: daffodils, sunflowers and, of course, the classic. 

“There is a rose farm in California — Grace Rose Farm — and they ship out, and I have ordered the most gorgeous roses that are going to smell amazing,” Keller said. “I have a limited quantity of those…and they’re just going to be absolutely stunning.” 

See a show at The Varsity Center

Speaking of “You’ve Got Mail,” would it be Valentine’s Day without rom-coms? Actually, it could be. If you head to The Varsity Center on The Strip, you can enjoy the best of both worlds and decide for yourself. 

The locally owned performing arts venue, which has been around for 85 years, hosts live music, entertainment and theater, as well as installations and exhibits. As part of the Cinema at the Varsity program, the venue is screening “Before Sunrise” on Feb. 13, a 1995 romantic drama starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy as two strangers who meet on a train and decide to spend one spontaneous night together. The film is considered an indie classic. 

“We’re always working on how to bring titles that may have been skipped or missed here in Carbondale,” board president Billy Robbins said. “You know, we have 16 other screens on the other side of town, and half the time they’re all playing the same thing, which that’s just kind of the industry right now. But there are smaller films that fall through or don’t get ran there, and we’ll have that opportunity.” 

On Valentine’s Day, however, The Varsity is breaking tradition by hosting a shadowcast performance of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” a movie and musical that is largely considered a Halloween cult classic, at 9 p.m.

“We’ll have a film for soft, warm and fuzzy on Friday, if you want…mushy, very just classic, sunsets and all that,” Robbins said. “Or you can come be trashy with us on the 14th with the shadowcast and they do such a fun job.” 

Ultimately, Robbins said, The Varsity Center works to create a welcoming environment in southern Illinois — and they’ve got some holiday-themed concessions to go along with it. 

“Some people don’t get ‘Rocky,’ but it’s really a clear message that really we have here at the Varsity, it’s that everybody has a place to fit in here,” Robbins said. “We’re not just a one-trick pony…Here, film and music and comedy, whether it’s improv or standup or storytelling and our live theater groups, whether it’s our resident group, our guest companies that come in, it’s all a part of what we do here.” 

Read a romance novel from Confluence Books 

If you’re electing for a quieter night in, or looking for something to pass the time before the bars open, consider reading a romance novel. According to Reader’s Digest, romance is the most popular genre in the country. Located in the historic Stotlar House on West Main Street is Confluence Books — a used book store with over 800 romance novels across sections. 

“Some people call it romance, somebody else might call it fiction, somebody else might call it mystery, and so they’ll be in all of those, so there’s some overlap,” owner Sarah Heyer said. 

Confluence Books accepts donations of any books and either re-donate them to local organizations, like The Science Center, Goodwill and Headstart, or re-sell them, with most falling between $2 and $20. As a used book store, Heyer said it is hard to keep up with the newest releases, but even with primarily older romance novels on the shelves, the genre still sells fairly well. 

“We’ve gone through half of our stock, so 50% of the (romance) books that we’ve gotten in have actually sold,” Heyer said. 

Heyer is working to diversify the section as well. She said she’s seen online that dark romances are on the rise in popularity, so the romance shelves have a spot for “vampire romances.” But if you’re in the mood for the classics, the store has those too, like “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Brontë and the works of Nicholas Sparks and B.J. Daniels.

“In spirituality, we talk about love too, and psychology, so don’t forget about those books,” Heyer said.  

And even if romance isn’t your thing, the store has something for everyone: mystery, biography, history, drama, health, regional works — the list goes on. Over 20,000 books are available to browse and purchase in-store or via curbside pickup. You can also browse their website, confluencebooks618.com. 

Set the mood with music from Plaza Records

Now that you’ve got books and movies on your list, there’s still a form of entertainment to check off: music. 

“I think love plays a big role in music, because nearly every song that’s out there has some sort of passion to it,” Chris Wittman, manager at Plaza Records, said. “So in a way, you could almost say every song is a love song of sorts.” 

Also located on The Strip, Plaza Records sells vinyl records, CDs, DVDs and other forms of media. The business, which has been around since the 1970s, buys, sells and trades used items. 

“There’s always rarities that will show up, more niche items that you won’t be able to find at a big retail store, like Target or Walmart,” Wittman said. 

Wittman said that the popular titles at Plaza Records lately have been artists from the 1990s, such as Alice in Chains, Green Day, Soundgarden and Nirvana. Classics like Fleetwood Mac, The Beatles and Grateful Dead remain in demand. 

According to Psychology Today, music helps enhance positive emotions and manage stress. Plaza Records can help you find a mood booster, a gift for others or the perfect playlist for your Valentine’s party. 

“The great thing about vinyl records is as long as you take care of them, they can last forever,” Wittman said. “So whether it’s a friend or partner, a cool thing (to buy) is a vinyl record, because as long as you take care of that, like you would your friendship or relationship, they can last a very long time.”

Enjoy a baked good at Cristaudo’s

After all this planning, you’ve probably worked up an appetite. Luckily, Cristaudo’s, a local bakery that has been around since 1977, is located in the same building as Plaza Records, and they’ve got some deals planned. For $12, you can get four cookies and two 45 rpm vinyls, tailored to whether you love or hate Valentine’s Day.

“We always have our Valentine’s Day cookies. We have red, white and pink ones decorated plain, and then we do cute little message heart ones that are like the candy hearts,” co-owner Leah Maciell said. “But then we also do a spin, and we call them the anti-valentine cookies. They’re black iced cookies with red writings that are usually just a little snarky.” 

The Cristaudo’s Valentine’s Day menu also includes heart-shaped petit fours, cakes and savory items. 

“You can purchase a ready to heat meal,” Maciell said. “That’s an artichoke chicken with local mushrooms, broccoli and mashed potatoes. Or a vegan gnocchi and burgundy tomato sauce with local mushrooms and all of this stuff is on our website that you can find. And then we also do a heart-shaped quiche, and that’s also made with local mushrooms and a local martzu cheese.” 

Maciell said Cristaudo’s offers a wide variety of treats, all of which can be purchased in store Wednesday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. You can also order online for Friday and Saturday pickups or call the store at 618-529-4303. 

“We have macarons that are always gluten free, so is our chocolate-dipped strawberries. We usually also try to do some decorated vegan sugar cookies for those people who are vegan,” Maciell said. “We try to have something for everybody no matter what their dietary restrictions are. And our recipes are decades old, we have never changed anything here. So it’s just a little taste of home.” 

Editor-in-Chief Carly Gist can be reached at [email protected] or on Instagram @gistofthestory.

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