Why Love Valentine’s Day?

First let’s talk about all the reasons to hate Valentine’s Day:

Commercialization

Unrealistic Expectations

Phoniness

Cheesiness

Artificial

I will acknowledge each and everyone of the reasons as true to the bone.

But, I still love Valentine’s Day.

I have every reason not too.  Besides the general arguments for loathing Love Day, I have a checkered past on February 14th.  I have broken up with four boys/men on Valentine’s, including the man who would become my husband, the father of my children, the love of my life.  I don’t blame St. Valentine for those broken hearts.  When something is fundamentally wrong with a relationship, it rises to the surface during holidays.  I have always preferred to be by myself than in a bad relationship, and so most of my Valentine’s Days have leaned towards the dark side of romance.

But, I still love it.

The worst Valentine’s Day of my life was in 1985.  Fourth grade.  Chicken pox.  I remember sitting in backseat of my mom’s station wagon while she reached over a snow bank and slush river to hand me my doily-decorated shoebox full of valentines from classmates.  My box did not win the mailbox contest and because I had to sit in the freezing car, sequestered with my germs, while she collected my proofs of affection, I never witnessed the competition.  I felt robbed of a blue ribbon, a major holiday, and the last school party of the year.  My most bitter valentine tears were wept that day, not at the end of any romantic dalliance.

You see, everything I love about Valentine’s Day has to do with pink construction paper, red foil heart stickers, and those delicate doilies.  Every year I sat at the kitchen table for hours with my glue and scissors, my pink and red markers.  I carefully crafted the best hearts for my best friends and those elementary school boys who embodied the word crush.  I have even found penny valentines from boys I liked tucked into my grade school diaries.

My sweetest valentines always came from my constant love, Mom.  My sister and I would come down to breakfast and find a medium-sized heart full of chocolates and an intricate homemade valentine.  My mother doesn’t craft often, but once a year her mad skills trump and surprise us all.

One year (was it the year after we broke up?) my husband and I tried to do the traditional wooing, and it went comically wrong.  He gave me a necklace with a diamond moon pendant to represent our meeting at a blue moon party, which was sweet and remains a favorite.  We went to a superb French restaurant which offered us substandard food and awful service on that crowded day.  We both felt forced and foolish and have avoided those pre-packaged displays ever since.  Once was more than enough.

But, I still love Valentine’s Day.

This year my mom will be in town (a rare treat) and I have invited my single friend to join us for dinner.  We will enjoy a fondue dinner together with the kids: cheese for dinner, chocolate for dessert.  We will celebrate love the way it comes to us everyday, through children, through family, through friendship, and the enduring relationships that last a lifetime.  Andres works late that night and will be relegated to leftovers, although we plan to sneak out to the Keys for some star-gazing with his new binoculars in the middle of the night.

Later today my children will make beautifully messy valentines for their friends.  I will set them to town at the kitchen table and let them express their love from their own hearts.  And there is a lot of love going around these days.  In kindergarten there are multiple love triangles, trapezoids, and parallelograms floating through Mrs. Peacock’s class.  Plus, preschool Jack has his very first girlfriend, sweet Penelope.  What valentine will he make for the first girl to steal his heart?

Last year I was shocked that so many moms at Max’s preschool did all the work.  The wobbly spellers didn’t even sign their adorable names.  He was presented with gorgeous creations like lollipop bouquets and butterfly candy hearts.  They were surely Pinterest-inspired and Pinterest-posted.  But they did not come from the hand or heart of a child.

Everything that makes Valentine’s Day an easy target for eye-rolling hipsters can easily be avoided, and can’t touch the sweet memories of childhood or the tender intentions that come from a handmade valentine.

It is time to decorate our imperfectly perfect hearts and hand them out to anyone worthy enough to appreciate this,

the loveliest of holidays.

xoxo