Happy Valentine’s Day! Here is a little something I wrote last year for the holiday of love:
I just spent a mind-numbing half hour helping my son sign eighteen valentine cards for his classmates. Even he was getting bored, evident by his increasingly lax standards of how to make the letters in his name: “This is a different way to make a ‘C,’ Mom.” Looks good to me, buddy. No one is going to pay much attention to your valentine anyway since mom here went the cheap-o route this year and got the ones that don’t come with any candy.
- The slow deterioration of good penmanship
I don’t care much about Valentine’s Day. It’s not that I dislike it; I am just completely apathetic toward it. Valentine’s Day is like the fifth guy from *NSync in the world of holidays…you know, the one that’s not Justin Timberlake, Joey Fatone, Lance Bass, or JC Chavez. You don’t mind that it’s there, but you also wouldn’t really notice if it wasn’t. (And since I spent a ridiculous amount of time deciding which holidays the other guys would be, please indulge this small tangent: Timberlake is totally the Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Year’s triplet threat. Fatone is Halloween; goofy, fun, and you know he has some mad skills for trading bad jokes for candy. Bass, he’s a firework who lets his colors burst like the Fourth of July. And just like the Easter Bunny tries to be as cool as Santa, Chavez ain’t no Timberlake. Now back to the point.)
I am not the only one in my house who feels this way about Valentine’s day. My husband has made a declaration that I never have to buy him a card as long as we live. He thinks they are a racket. In fact, he doesn’t want me to get him anything for Valentine’s day…well, anything that costs money. Wink, wink. (*eye roll*) But we always feel the need to help the kids put something together for one another. I have to be honest. Despite the fact that we know we all love each other, these little tokens of Cupid feel a little forced and trite. For example, my daughter informed me today that she was going to write a poem for everyone in our family: “Roses are red, Violets are blue, Happy Valentine’s Day, I love you.” (Members of our family, I am so sorry to ruin the surprise.) Forced. Trite.
What my kids don’t know is that they give me little valentines all year long. And this is what they look like in my head:
- AHA! They DO really love each other!
- I adore the little notes Grace leaves for me all the time
- True stories.
- I die from cuteness.
- I will mold her into my tiny clone. *maniacal laugh*
- He also realized we don’t live in a barn and actually closed the door.
- No words necessary
That means the pressure is off for Valentine’s Day. I already have everything I need; and I am pretty sure the rest of my family does, too. So we can instead enjoy the fun of Mardi Gras today and properly stuff our faces for Fat Tuesday. And then tomorrow on Ash Wednesday we can realize that all the crap we ate today might lead to that whole “to dust you shall return” thing happening just a wee bit sooner than later. But at least we won’t have to worry about last-minute Valentine gifts.
However, maybe someone should send something to that fifth guy from *NSync. This is his holiday after all.
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I think Valentine’s Day was the first time I started accepting the kid could go by a shorter version of his name and I could be OK with that 🙂
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Amen to that!!! I have a sneaking suspicion that many kids suddenly get nicknames when they become just old enough to sign their Valentine’s cards.
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What a great way to look at Valentine’s Day…that you get yours all year long:)) We just had to sign 20 Valentines cards as well and my 1st grader was the exact same way. I don’t even know if he’ll be able to read them well enough to get them to the right person!?!?
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All they really care about is the candy anyway. That Valentine’s box is just one hot mess of cartoon character characters, sugar, and bad penmanship 🙂
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Why do women always roll their eyes when we tell them what we really want for Valentine’s Day? They don’t like saving money?
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I love saving money. I also like sleeping. And flannel pajamas.
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Love it! So agree about NSYNC 🙂 You’re blessed to have such an adorbs, happy, FUN family!!
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I am blessed. And I’m glad my N*Sync analogies resonated. I seriously spent way too long thinking about those.
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Oh THANK you! Someone finally said it…and so WELL! My husband and I totally agree!!! Love isn’t candy and flowers (that cost five times as much bc it’s Valentine’s Day), it’s the day to day way we care for each other. I am loved. I am thankful.
Confession though….still eat the chocolate – doesn’t have to come in a heart shaped box, but I do love chocolate…any time.
Happy Valentines’ Day to you and yours.
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YES! I will always eat candy 🙂 But thankfully my husband and I know it’s not needed. One less thing to feel guilty about. Happy Valentine’s day!
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Who IS that guy? Now that you brought it up, I cannot for the life of me remember him.
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I know, right? So I just typed the actual words “fifth guy from NSync” and I got, “What ever happened to Chris Kirkpatrick?” So I guess it’s Chris Kirkpatrick 🙂 And side note, this very blog post came up as the fifth entry on google to answer that question. Bonus!
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I totally feel you… except that it’s my wedding anniversary, and NO we did not set out to get married on Valentine’s day. We are not, in any way, that romantic! But, due to the yearly reminder, I make Valentine’s special every year. I just hate that i have to compete with a bazillion idiots who love red, heart-shaped boxes of candy. :-p Adorable post, Kelly!
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Thanks! And being that it IS your anniversary, it does deserve special treatment. But I never thought about how annoying it might be to share your anniversary with the masses. Hope that you guys somehow are able to make it feel like “your day” 🙂
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We work at it every year… but there are certainly no last minute gestures when your anniversary is Valentine’s Day! ugh.
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That is so true about receiving Valentines throughout the year. All of those little things are better than heart shaped chocolate any day. I generally consider V day to be ‘for the kids’. Yesterday I came home from a week long business trip to find my husband cooking a special V day meal. He advised that it wasn’t for us rather, it was his gift to our son who wanted to do something special for his girlfriend. Talk about love.
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Aw…sweet of your son AND your husband to cook it for him. And I was JUST talking with someone this morning about how Valentine’s Day has really just become about the kids. I spend all my time helping them get their cards and crafts ready. And really, that’s fine with me. It’s more exciting for them anyway.
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I agree with your husband; bought cards are a racket. I’d rather die from homemade cuteness.
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Agreed!
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