Valentine's Day

I was going to post this tomorrow, but figured with the theme of this blog it makes more sense to post it today.

We don't celebrate Valentine's Day. Brent and I don't exchange cards, gifts, chocolates or flowers. We don't get dressed up and go to dinner with 100 of our closest friends. We of course are aware it's happening, how can you miss it? Especially now that the stores start putting out the heart shaped boxes at the day after Christmas sales. But we don't buy any of it. I was the one that made this call pretty early in our marriage. There were a few things that led me to that decision.

I will start with my favorite Valentine's Day memory and then explain how I got from there to not celebrating it at all. This particular Valentine's Day Brent was in the middle of a six month cruise and I was going to school in San Diego. I had spent the morning in class listening to my friends all talk about their plans with boyfriends and girlfriends for the evening. I was trying very hard and failing miserable at not feeling sorry for myself. Brent wasn't in port so there wouldn't even be a phone call and this was before email on the ship so unless there was a letter in my mailbox when I got home I wouldn't even hear from him. I had mailed a care package to him a few weeks earlier with cookies and chocolates but there was no telling if it would make it to him anywhere close to the date.

So anyway, I get home from school ready to sit down to a full on pity party for myself and as I turn the corner to head up to our apartment I see two long white boxes by the door. Now at this point I am thinking...it couldn't be...You know in the old 40s movies when a woman would get roses they always came in long white boxes? Well Brent and I had been watching an old movie before he left and I had mentioned how growing up I had always wanted to get roses in the long white box. It just seemed so romantic to me. But I had never seen them actually delivered that way. So here are two long white boxes by the door. I practically ran up the stairs to the front door to see if it really was what I thought it was. Two dozen long stem red roses from Brent. I sat on the floor and alternated between crying and smelling my flowers for quite awhile. Now to make this happen, he had to make arrangements with his father BEFORE he left on this cruise months earlier. Had to send him money and what he wanted the card to say and find a florist that would deliver them in San Diego in the long white box. Again, all of this in the age before internet and Google. How are you ever going to top that? Yes, it was roses which is a pretty traditional gift, but the thought and the planning behind that gift really was what mattered.

Fast forward a few years and we are living in Idaho Falls and Christopher is just over a year old. Brent had to work on Valentine's Day but after work he stopped at the store and picked up a couple of balloons with Sandra Boynton characters on them for Christopher and I. Now hopefully all of you parents out there are familiar with the Boynton books, they are really fabulous board books for little ones. Fun to read to them with adorable illustrations. Christopher was so excited to get those balloons! He hauled them around everywhere for a week until they finally lost all of their air and then we still kept them in his room as pictures. This time it was a really simple gift, but it was one that meant a lot to Christopher and I because the characters on them were something he loved and the fact that Brent made sure to stop and pick them up after a long day at work as a surprise.

So when I tell you we don't celebrate you can see that it's not because Brent isn't good at it, he is. It's because I reached a point right about that time where I really started not liking what the holiday seemed to be about. I watched married couples that we knew who were fairly awful to each other on a regular basis plan these huge celebrations, dinners, vacations, jewelry, roses, what ever it was and expect those things as well. "He better not forget, and it better be great" And let's face it ladies, it usually is up to the man to dote on the woman on Valentine's Day right? Anyway, it was like Yom Kippur for relationships. The day of atonement for every bad thing you had done the year before and if the gift was big enough and fancy enough then all was forgiven and you could go back to being awful to each other.

Not to mention what it does to single people. It's like this constant drum beat of "you are alone you loser" for the month of February. Now the month of January as well. What if you like being alone? There's nothing wrong with that. And what if you wish you were with someone else but aren't? Do you really need a constant reminder of it?

And oh the expectations! So if you are in a healthy relationship and you want to do something special on Valentine's Day and you make all of these plans for the perfect evening with your significant other how in the world can anything live up to those expectations? Restaurants are crowded, prices are high, the menu is pre-set. Hotels are booked ahead. That unique piece of jewelry you picked out is probably just like that piece her best friend got two years ago. The gifts are mostly cliche. And if you do find something unique to your relationship there is a shot that someone is going to be disappointed. Either the receiver because it's just not what was expected or the giver because the reaction didn't fit the image of the reaction you had in your head. Oh the stress...

So I told Brent that I didn't want to celebrate Valentine's Day anymore. I just didn't see the need for it. And he spent the first few years of that decision waiting to see if it was a trap. :-) But it wasn't. I really didn't want anything. No card, no candy, no flowers, no dinner out. Nothing. And I like it that way. Though I do have to tell people every year that we don't celebrate when asked about big plans. And I know half of them think, how sad, and half think, I wish we didn't! But it really isn't bad. I know Hallmark misses our money as well as FTD and See's Candy, but it's okay, they have everyone else to fill the gap.

But Brent summed it up best this week when a co-worker asked him about what he was going to do for me for Valentine's Day. When Brent said I don't celebrate his friend said how lucky he was. Brent (I imagine he did this with his wry smile) said, "Yeah, she expects me to be nice to her everyday."