Ahhh, Valentine's Day. To buy into the canned romance, or loftily scorn it as an exercise in commercialism? To stick a cinnamon-heart-stained tongue out at the cynics and bake heart-shaped cookies or stonily spend the day organizing your sock drawer?
I know Feb 14th has become a marketing nightmare. The pressure to spend is silly. But look at it this way: V-day is an extra chance to celebrate love, friendship, warm fuzzies, whatever. It doesn't have to be done in an expensive or elaborate manner(although planning a V-day scheme of some sort is always half the fun in my eyes). And it doesn't have to feel like canned romance either if you're creative.
I don't care whether you're male or female, young or seasoned, single or matched up. Even if you're a growly old bear who forcibly damns all Valentine celebrations back to Hallmark, you CANNOT tell me that getting a Valentine card - even if it's home-made - on your desk or in the mail doesn't make your gravelly heart soften just a leeetle bit.
C'mon, admit it: didn't you love being a kid, filling out a bunch of those weeny little cards, sticking a paper bag on the side of your desk and gloating over it when it got full?
I partially blame my mother for my constant love of V-day. She celebrated it in style: big construction paper hearts with doilies stuck on every window; cards for my Dad, sister and me along with some sweet treat; an elaborate breakfast table that inluded pink grapefruit halves decorated with a cinnamon heart in the middle, home-made crepes, and the ruby-coloured goblets full of freshly squeezed OJ that only came out on February 14th. We always had to wear something red or pink that day. So did she. I LOVED IT!
So I'm celebrating V-day, people, and I urge you to do the same, even if it's just in some small way. This year I am going all out, Alisa Feick style: I bought some heart decal thingies to stick on the windows, I'm making crepes for D on the 14th, and I'm even going to put on my lucky heart-dotted underwear and bake those delectable, heart-shaped, cream-cheese cookies mom used to make with the pink icing in the middle. If you're nice to me, I might even send you some.
And when I walk the long lane down to my mailbox on Friday, I hope I find a card or two in there from those of you who haven't completely drowned in the mire of anti V-day cynicism.
10 comments:
I've been known to send out Valentines over sending out Christmas cards. And generally for the special people in my life I'll pick them up something that is completely unrelated to Valentines Day.
I promise I'll be really nice to you, Kim, if you'll just let me have a sample of your mom's cookie!
And - ahem - if it's not too personal, what's up with the lucky underwear? :)
Hubby's birthday is on 15th, our anniversary is the 17th - now isn't that romantic. xx
My mother was a pack rat who purchased large amounts of "gifts" when she found them on sale. Among her treasures were about 50 pairs of musical, heart-printed underwear. Yup. Musical. Underwear. You'd open up the box of undies and it would play a tune.
Anyways, after she died my sis and I had to clean out her craft room and we came upon the pile of singing undies. I think I took about 5 for myself and miraculously, I can still fit into them. I'd say that makes them pretty darned lucky, wouldn't you?
Mrs. S - that rocks!
We might 'rock' but we've never had musical undies! I love your mother's sense of humour! Musical undies - hahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahaha - hehehehehehehehe. Good for her. xx
Musical undies that you still fit into while several months pregnant?! You bet I'd call that lucky - either that or just darned unfair, lol!
I still remember Mom and I decorating a kleenex box for school for our class's Valentine's exchange. I don't remember what grade it was, maybe fourth, but our teacher had all of us write a Valentine for each member of our class then deliver them to the box we decorated. From what I can recall, the box we made was absolutely stunning. :)
I loved Mom's holiday manic-modes, too. The good ones, anyway--not the Christmas lights ones. Those were scary. She really made a big effort to make us smile on V-day. :)
You didn't mention the singing underwear, though...
Good on ya for keeping the holiday fun alive. Your child will be thankful for it, too!
P.S. The fact that Mom still went all out for us on V-day when it was her anniversary makes me love her even more. That couldn't have been easy.
I wish I could have met your mom - her love of holidays reminds me of my mom.
I can't help but love V-Day; this year I was at a wedding on the big day and spent it with my girlfriends rather than Mike. I drank a few gallons of champagne to make up for distance between us and danced cheek to cheek with Rebecca. :)
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