Valentine's Day: Why I Don't Care

This blog entry is a present for my husband, so that this year when people give him heck for not giving me a present or taking me to dinner he can direct them here and get the horse's mouth.  Every year I give him explanations to hand out, but people do have their set ways, so maybe good old black and white will do the trick.

Honest to God: I don't care about this holiday.  I think it's lovely in concept, and the hearts are cute and a welcome change from the snow by this point.  There is a certain charm to roses in February, yes.  Not at those prices, but in concept, yes.  I encourage and applaud others who chose to celebrate this holiday and by no means think my reasonings should be imported by someone looking to get off easy.  But the fact of the matter is, it's not my day.

I think it may stem from being left out in the cold for so long on this day.  Dan is my very first valentine.  I never had a sweetheart on Valentine's Day before Dan – wait, maybe one, but there was not the kind of attention dreams were made of.  So there's this twenty year stretch where my valentines were from my mother and friends, and once you turn twelve that just starts to feel like a joke.   I have lots of memories of watching other people get valentine cakes, valentine balloons, valentine flowers.  I participated in singing valentines.  I dressed up.  I did things for friends.  But mostly that day was a day where other people had sweethearts and I didn't.

Actually, I think I can mark the date where February 14 permanently lost its appeal.  It would be February 14, 2000, my first year of teaching seventh grade.  That day the whole middle school watched the cafeteria FILL with balloons, flowers, stuffed animals, toys, presents – it was insane and beautiful in a gaudy way.  All day the stuff gathered, spilling over and out and everyone in the school was buzzing, waiting for this loot to be distributed.  Then homeroom came and it was.  Name by name students were called, a constant litany over the loudspeaker.  The chosen ran off, eager and happy, and as the list rolled on, I started to notice another emotion: relief.  Then the calls stopped, and I looked around the room.

There aren't many words for the faces of the twelve year olds who were left, sitting with me, with no valentine waiting downstairs.  I don't care how iron you were: to have seen that wash of stuff and then to not be called was a devastation.  Everybody had the same thought:  All those valentines and not one of them was for me.  It was one of the most awful moments of my life.  I think I did something pathetic like handed out suckers.  Then the next day when it came up at a faculty meeting a motion carried  and the deliveries stopped for good: if people wanted to send valentines, do it at home.  The principal and office staff had started the charge because of the organizational headache, but when the teachers started pointing out how bad the kids felt, the decision was final, and to my knowledge, still standing to this day.

The other reason I don't need Valentine's Day is because after all those years of crappy valentine moments, when I met my prince he really came through in spades.  Our first year dating Dan sent me a dozen roses at work.  Delivered by the florist with a card that had a lovely sentiment and "Love, Dan" at the end.  I believe there was dinner involved later that night.  One year I made a red dress and bought a red bag and red shoes and met Dan in a restaurant like we were meeting by happenstance.  We've made CDs for each other.  One year I made him a robe.  We've bought presents, both small and big.  We've done it all in less than ten years.

There are practical reasons, too.  We usually go for broke at Christmas and are still recovering in February.  Having a four year old makes spontaneous dinner a difficulty, and then the restaurants are so crowded.  Sometimes we say we'll make CDs, but sometimes we are tired and really slagging from the lack of sunlight about now, so we don't have that kind of energy. 

Also, despite the fact that I write romance, I am not (and neither is Dan) the sort of person who needs repeated grand gestures.  I love them – but once they've been done, they've been done.  We set the bar at the ceiling the first year out: on our very first Valentine's Day we bought each other exactly the same card.  It felt like fate, and it was, and we've never been able to top that since.

And to be really corny, we're more likely to be spontaneously romantic or thoughtful as the need arises, not as the calendar turns.  So for Valentine's Day this year we went to Borders and each picked out something we wanted (Dan got a CD; I got Thief of Time).  However, we've agreed that sometime before this summer, on an undisclosed date, we will give each other something romantic and fun and charming or clever or just really really wanted.  Like, Dan might get me "Death in the Kitchen" from Clarecraft on ebay.  And I might get him a zombie figurine he didn't know he wanted.  Or he'll find me new music that he knows I'll love but would never have found on my own.  I might get him a book.  It's hard to say.  But it'll happen and on its own time.

So everybody who gives my husband hell because he doesn't pay a fortune for dead flowers or give me a tonnage of chocolate or whatever, lay off.  He's only following his orders.  Right now as I write this blog entry the best two valentines I have ever had and will ever have are in snoring next to each other in the bed.  They each give me their own gifts at their own time.  We have ourselves covered, thanks.  And if it really bugs you that Dan's not participating in Valentine's Day, give HIM flowers.  He likes them more than me.