V day

Happy Valentine's Day!

I am torn between hating and loving Valentine's Day.

I hate the fact that it is so commercialized. I hate the fact that it is forced upon guys and they need a holiday to be reminded to do something nice for their significant other. (that's right, I am picking on guys and believe that women are superior and don't need reminding to do nice things.)

Mostly I hate that it seems to pick on single people. It is hard enough for a lot of people to be single, do they need to see this big love fest going on that they are not part of?

However, I kind of love Valentine's Day too. I love that I saw a guy carrying a four-foot tall, ginormous teddy bear on the el yesterday.

And I love valentines. Do you remember getting valentines as a kid? I remember, I think it was third grade, when we constructed little mailboxes to put our valentines into. And then we went around and passed them out. And just seeing a little mailbox full of valentines made me so happy.

Then of course you would rip into them to see who got the good ones and who got the lame ones. See who signed "love" and who signed "your friend."

Do you know what I miss the most? The little envelopes that valentines used to come in. You can't find them nowadays to save your life. Where's the fun in that? You used to have to open up a valentine, now you just flip it over to see who it is from. I guess I liked them because having to open them made them seem like presents. And we all know how much I like presents! :)

I suppose it IS a lot more environmentally friendly to do away with the envelopes, but sometimes I don't care about the environment. Not when it messes with my childhood memories!

Maybe next year I will start making my own valentines and sending them out.

That is the other good thing about valentines day--- taking the time to tell your friends and family how much you love them. (yes, I know we should do this all the time.)

My other favorite parts about valentines day were that we used to have these three heart shaped pillows that we would put out as decorations during February. I like little traditions like that.

Also, my father would give my mom and all of the kids a special present on Valentine's day. He would shop for it and pick it out himself. So it wasn't something that we asked for. And he put thought and energy into it. (whereas for Christmas and our birthdays it always seemed that my mom did the shopping.)

My favorite Valentine's present is probably still when he got me the Barbie Corvette. It was SWEET!

No matter what you do today, I hope you have a wonderful Valentine's day. And just know that I think that you rock!