Valentine's Day - what does it mean to you?

I'll ask this at the beginning so it doesn't get lost in my lengthy post. Happy Valentine’s Day to all. I realize that today means different things for different people. I’d love to hear what your traditions are on Valentine’s Day. Leave me a comment.

For me Valentine’s Day has lost much of its appeal. When I was little my favorite part was decorating our “mailbox” (container) I’d get to take to school and anticipate all of my valentines from all of my school mates. No one had to tell us to write a valentine for everyone, that is just what you did. You even gave a valentine to the boy who drove you nuts or didn’t smell so good and not because someone handed you a list of names. As I became a teen and even into college days Valentine’s Day became more anticipation that someone might surprise you with something to brighten my day. Of course getting something was much more exciting from a guy than any of the girlfriends.

20 years ago on this day Nick was driving west to move out there before we got married. He missed arriving on Valentine’s by a day. At first I was really disappointed that we wouldn’t get to spend that day together. But I wanted him to arrive alive and determined then that Valentine’s Day wasn’t nearly as important as our wedding day would soon become to us. This was emphasized on our first Valentine’s Day a year later when I realized on our meager budget that I’d much rather Nick not spend any money on me when he could get twice as many flowers for the same price, in 6 weeks for our wedding. YES I love to get flowers and will never tire of them. So the tradition began. There have been a few times where we have gone out to dinner or this morning, to breakfast. But I do not anticipate anything more and I’m completely fine with that. I know that in 6 weeks we will celebrate being married for 20 years and although we aren’t going anywhere exciting just like our 10^th and 15^th (when we were poor grad students), it’s OK we are simply happy to be together.

Now Valentine’s Day is much more for the kids. Dan is on his way out of the pass a card to everyone stage! Sam has a few years left. Honestly they really don’t care about it either. I live in a house of boys. So it becomes a much bigger deal to me. I have also never been one to buy a box of traditional Valentines cards, anyway. I have this deep inner drive to be different and since the boys don’t care too much they usually go along with whatever I come up with.

This year it was all about chocolate. For Dan we took sucker sticks and put a marshmallow on the end. The store just happened to have pink ones! He isn’t into pink but that’s OK, we covered them in melted milk chocolate. Then dipped them in colorful sprinkles (do you know I had a hard time finding valentine sprinkles that weren’t just colored red sugar?). He also did half with chopped peanuts, his favorite and he knew several kids at school who would like them. I was surprised to learn these really are much faster to do that one might think. I am going to remember this concept for other things. I found the idea here. However, the ones I found were made with two marshmallows on a stick. I have to say that is a lot more work, hard to get the marshmallows not to separate and honestly eating a single dipped marshmallow is MORE than enough sugar for a treat!

Sam’s valentines were a little more time consuming but not by much. We took pretzel rods and broke them in half. Then dipped each end in colored dipping chocolate and wrapped with valentine sentiment crayon labels. I have to say they are really cute. I found the idea here.

To sum up my view of Valentine's Day, I'd have to say that for now its simply a venue for me to do something different and creative that the kids will enjoy sharing with their friends. I don't love my family and loved ones any more or less because of this day. It is simply just another day in anticipation to a better one in 6 weeks.