Happy Valentine's Day

Valentine’s Day is nearly here. Have you bought your chocolates? Booked your table at a fancy restaurant? Snuck red-faced into Victoria’s Secret looking for that special item for the woman in your life? Well, what are you waiting for?

Some people love Valentine’s Day, others hate it. Is it really a day to cherish those people we love most or a day for Hallmark, Teleflora and most restaurants to suck all the money out of our wallets?

Well...it’s both. Valentine’s Day can be the most wonderful day of the year when you are in love. If you’re not in a relationship, it can be torture. The day is filled with love songs, roses, romantic movies and retail specials geared towards everyone and everything: “Show your car how much you love it…bring it in for an oil change on Feb. 14”.

After reading “Waiter Rant” a tell-all memoir by a professional waiter, I learned that Valentine’s Day is one of the absolute worst days to dine out. Restaurants create “special” menus which feature the priciest items and service tends to be less than stellar. Get take out and bring it home, or better still, prepare a special meal for your loved one in your own kitchen (men, I’m directing this to you, since I’m willing to bet that a large portion of the women reading this do the bulk of the cooking on a day to day basis. Does this make me sexist? Yup).

And then there’s candy. Forget the Whitman sampler. The best part about Whitman chocolates is the map that tells you how to avoid the nasty ones. However, I find most of them are nasty, so go for the good stuff: Ghirardelli, Godiva or Lindt. Avoid the candy conversation hearts like the plague. One year my son handed me one of those cute little candies with the phrase “I Luv U” on it. “Eat it mommy,” he urged, and like a good mother I did. Crack. That sound you heard was my tooth breaking apart. The only one feeling the love that year was my dentist, who was more than happy to replace my crown.

Somehow Valentine cards spiraled out of control at my house. Growing up, we bought cards for each member of our family. I continued this tradition when my children came along. But then one year I finally realized that I was sending cards from myself, my husband and my kids to my mother, father, in-laws, sisters, brothers-in-law, niece and nephews. It was like some kind of crazy math problem from my son’s homework:” If you have 15 people and each person sends a Valentine to each of the other people, how many Valentines will you have sent in all?” I may not be a math whiz, but when I added up all the cards and postage, I realized Valentine’s Day was becoming almost as expensive as Christmas. That was the year I discovered the one-size-fits-all photo card. Much like a Christmas card, I could customize it with photos of the entire family and send one card to each person on the list. This year I’m going to get creative with e-cards. By the way, the photo card also works well for those kids who don’t want to hand write their name on their classroom valentines. For the last couple of years my son has given classmates snazzy photo cards preprinted with “Happy Valentine’s Day from your friend Cooper.” They cost a bit more than Hannah Montana, Justin Bieber or “Toy Story 3” boxed cards, but the time you save…priceless.

Remember mix tapes? What better gift to give than a customized CD of music for the one you love? I did this one year for my husband. I compiled a playlist of romantic songs, each one designed to express my feelings for the wonderful man in my life. The mistake I made, however, was choosing romantic songs by artists that I liked: James Ingram, Celine Dion, Styx, and even a few show tunes made it onto the CD. I couldn’t figure out why my Grateful Dead-Beck-and-Stevie-Ray-Vaughn-loving-husband didn’t appreciate the gesture more. Next time I’ll look through his iTunes library before compiling a musical tribute.

Finally, why not wrap up your Valentine’s Day snuggling on the couch with a romantic movie? Sure you can limit yourselves to the obvious choices like “Sleepless in Seattle”, “Casablanca” or “The Princess Bride” (my husband’s personal favorite). Why not cast your net a bit wider and try a less conventional film? “Truly, Madly, Deeply” stars Alan Rickman (aka Severus Snape) as the deceased lover who returns from the grave to hang out for a bit with the woman he loves (and no, this is not a zombie flick. Think “Ghost” before there was “Ghost”). Want your man to get in touch with his feelings? Sit him down to a double feature of “Field of Dreams” and “Brian’s Song”. Have Kleenex nearby. And for those who are looking for something truly bizarre, may I recommend “Boxing Helena”, the story of a surgeon who becomes obsessed with a woman and removes her limbs in order to keep her close, in a box. Now there’s someone who should have stuck with the Whitman Sampler.

However you choose to celebrate, I wish you all a very Happy Valentine’s Day.
XOXOXO