Valentine's Day - The Meaning, Memories, Sweetness, and Occasional Insignificance of It

As Valentine's Day comes around each year we so often hear others saying how they hate the day, either because they believe it's something built up mostly by the greeting card industry or else because they're men who just "don't get" Valentine's Day - to the point they may even forget to acknowledge it. Then, of course, there are those who don't happen to have a Valentine from whom they will be getting a dozen or two of roses, maybe even a proposal, and the chance to feel like the people in television ads about Valentine's Day. Part of the problem may be that a whole lot of people (often women) simply expect too much when it comes to Valentine's Day. A lot of people just accept the image (all red roses and satin-covered candy boxes, accompanied by the finest of wines in the finest of restaurants, and maybe even "something diamond"). As far as I'm concerned, that's someone else's idea of what romance ought to be. (I've actually wondered if advertisers really know what real romance is.)

Then, too, another problem may be that people tend to forget all the different kinds of sweethearts we have in our lives. It's no wonder some people feel rotten about Valentine's Day. Sometimes love is all around them and staring them in the face daily, and these folks can't even see it, just because Prince Charming probably won't be showing up for Valentine's Day.

Valentine's Day has never been, for me, like anything we see show up in tv ads that are selling diamonds, flowers, or even greeting cards.

My best Valentine's Days were always those of my childhood. Before I became school age, or at least too far into the school years, Valentine's Day was pretty much about getting a cute stuffed animal. My WWII-generation father would also give my mother and older sister one of those heart-shaped boxes of chocolates with a "collector" doll on top. The dolls were nothing special (the kind sometimes used in crafts these days), but they had, in the eyes of a little girl, beautiful outfits that made them unique. My sister's collection stood on top of the chest of drawers in our room all year. My mother's was carefully tucked away with other sentimental things. Valentine's Day, it seemed, was something for which my father was responsible when it came to what us kids got (at least when we were little). I'm guessing it was some kind of "default type of thing" (or maybe he just liked bringing the Valentine gifts as part of his return from work on Valentine's Day).

I was a kid who didn't really like candy (especially chocolate), so when I got a little beyond the age when a stuffed animal seemed right (in view of the fact that my sister got a doll), my father just brought me a Ginny Doll for a couple of Valentine's Days. My older sister already had a great collection of beautifully dressed Ginny Dolls, so maybe it was his way of helping me catch up.

Once I was in elementary school, of course, Valentine's Day became a really big deal. Each year, in preparation for the Valentine's Day party, classmates and I would decorate our Valentine's boxes, which would, in one way or another, serve as a "mail box" for Valentines. I don't know if it was the city or the time in which I was a child, but there was pretty much one, standard, packages of Valentines sold for school-age children. By the time elementary-school kids were in third or fourth grade they were pretty familiar with exactly which Valentines came in the package, and which had the "best verses". There were a few "good" Valentines in each package, so only the most special classmates/friends got the "good" ones. Essentially, the "good" ones had cute pictures and didn't have "stupid" verses. For example, a "good" one may feature a cute kitten and words like, "Be My Valentine" on it. The "stupid" ones had pictures that didn't appeal to me (or most other girls), and the "worst" ones had both a really unappealing picture and stupid verse.

There was one "famous" Valentine, known for being an example of a "stupid" one. It had a cartoon-like drawing of a missile, with the words, "Missile be my Valentine". I recall more than one conversation with a friend about how stupid this verse was, until, at least, one friend said it probably was a way of saying, "might as well be my Valentine" in a clever way.

In any case, each year I'd get the package of the "same old" Valentines, sort out the "good" ones from the "stupid" ones, and set out to write them out, with my closest girlfriends getting the best ones, second-closest girlfriends getting any leftover "good" or "kind of good" ones, and boys getting the "stupid" ones. The more "stupid" the boy, the more "stupid" the Valentine. (I'd like to clarify that in my eyes, at the time, "stupid" was not about how intelligent a boy was. It was about whether he seemed like a nice person versus whether he seemed rude, crude, or mean.)

This system allowed for those years when there was one boy I "kind of liked", in which case selection of his Valentine required particular care. It had to be "good" and yet not let him know I liked him. In other words, it had to be "good" but not of closest-girlfriend "caliber of 'good'". The other side to this is that, as recipient of a "good" Valentine from any boy I could safely assume he had not assigned me to the "bad" Valentine group. I guess the way it worked in elementary school was that you could be fairly certain if you got a "bad" Valentine (although some boys just don't care about Valentines at all, so even then there's the chance you hadn't been intentionally singled out for "bad" Valentine). In general, though, if you got a "good" Valentine it could "mean something" or it may "mean nothing". Even with all the uncertainty, it was, at least, sort of safe to assume that a "good" Valentine didn't mean anything bad. (My mother, apparently not comfortable with hearing talk about "bad" Valentines, pointed out, "No Valentines are supposed to be bad. They're all nice.")

For elementary-school kids Valentine's Day was equally about the party at school, where treats were always sent in by mothers; and heart-shaped cookies, toll-house cookies, cupcakes with pink frosting, and "Conversation Hearts" candy were on the menu. After school was a time for going over and over all your Valentines, worrying about where to store your crepe-paper-covered and pretty much mangled box (at least until your mother could throw it away without your caring), and sorting whatever leftover treats were wrapped in the brown paper towels that served as napkins and food wrapping on party days.

Elementary-school-days Valentine's Days were, however, about as close to anything I've ever seen on television, thanks primarily to the Charlie Brown Valentine's Day special (or for that matter, any of the Charlie Brown specials which so cleverly show the dilemmas of school-aged kids, holidays, and the challenges of relationships with classmates and friends).

Valentine's Day wasn't just about what my parents gave me or school, though. I had three aunts and a grown, married, cousin, all of whom had children. My mother, aunts, and cousin would always shop for a holiday "gift-candy" for all the nieces, nephews, and cousins; wrap them, buy individual Valentines to be given to aunts, nieces, nephews, etc.; and pack up shopping bags that would be delivered to each house for Valentine's Day. This wasn't just something that was done when I was in elementary school. It continued well beyond my married years, when the aunts (not the cousin) continued to send Valentine bags to my children, as well as send me some little knick-knack thing or candy.

Seventh-grade brought an end to the crepe-paper-covered Valentine boxes and class parties, but it brought some new elements to the day as well. On the one hand, not having to give Valentines to classmates but also having outgrown the practice of giving Valentines to girlfriends, I didn't have to do much for Valentine's Day. Whatever my family did they still did. Something new was that junior high brought "The Valentine's Day Dance" at school - always a big event for which junior-high-age girls had to plan, for one reason or another. The Valentines Day was a taste of "real romance" around Valentine's Day: and even if a girl didn't have a boyfriend there was usually some element of romance, whether that was just dancing with someone special or commiserating with friends over not being noticed. Besides, with crepe-paper decorations of one sort or another and with an outfit specifically put together for a special occasion like this, there was just an air of romance - boyfriend or no boyfriend.

There's also something about junior-high boys, and that is they've often not yet learned to hide the fact that they like one girl or another. Elementary-school boys either hate all girls or hate all girls but one, in which case they'll hide liking the one unless she's really, really, overwhelmingly special. It's as if junior-high boys have been given permission to like girls, if only because they know they're no longer elementary-school age. So for me, in junior high, an added element was receiving surprise Valentine gifts from one boy or another who liked me. Don't get me wrong: These surprise gifts didn't show up in numbers to require a decorated Valentine Box or anything like that. It was just that, here or there in junior high, there would be the surprise Valentine gift. Sometimes it would be a single flower left for me to find, or brought by a neighbor-boy. One boy who liked me (and knew I liked him too) left me a Valentine charm to be found when I sat at my desk in Social Studies class. Even in its limited way, the romantic aspect to Valentine's Day definitely made its appearance in junior high.

For me, grades seven through ten also offered a "next-best-thing" type of element to Valentine's Day, because whether or not there was a boy I considered my "boyfriend", there was one dependable, reliable, and very good friend (a boy) who liked me "romantically" even though I saw him as "only a friend". That meant that whether or not I had any "official" "love interest" in my young life, there were dances and little gifts from whose long-running interest in me, if nothing else, made me feel special and liked.

Valentine's Day in tenth-grade was a big one for me. Just after turning sixteen I had gotten a job at a good-sized supermarket, so there was a whole new world of potential "love interests" offered by the number of boys working as sackers and grocery stock-clerks. This place was, indeed, a hotbed of dating activity; although most of the time the dates didn't work out and instead turned into close friendships between the girls and guys. There was, however, one kid with whom it was a clear a "torrid affair" (as "torrid" as it was going to ever get) was in the making, and it was just before Valentine's Day he and I began to date. For me, I think, this was really the first Valentine's Day that would be romantic. In those days sixteen, and newly dating, meant a pretty "innocent" relationship; and what that meant was that, perhaps with having seen huge numbers of romantic comedies, sixteen-year-old girls (and boys, too) got to experience romance mostly from the experience of "feeling like being in a movie", rather than anything more serious. Romance at sixteen (a least for teens not going steady with one kid since sixth grade) was a matter of infatuation mixed with innocence and charm. While I got a card and some kind of Yardley rose scent that year, I thought it would be cute to give my new boyfriend three "adorable and funny" Valentines. After all, one just wasn't enough. I don't know why four was too much. It just, apparently, was. There's no making sense of how a teen girl in a new love "affair" thinks. By March the romance was over. That, I guess, is the difference between the people in romantic comedies and sixteen-year-old kids who don't realize how young they still are.

In my years between seventeen and twenty-one there was another romance or two that may or may not have coincided with a Valentine's Day, so there were some Valentine's Days that were limited to whatever cards and candy I got from family members. There were a few that included a dinner and flowers, but not many. It almost didn't matter, because I'd be raised to see Valentine's Day as something family shares. I guess if I didn't have a long-term boyfriend any particular year I saw not having one for Valentine's Day as pretty much the least of my overall life problems. I've never been one for all that red-hearts-and-satin Valentine stuff anyway. Besides, I had outgrown my childhood indifference toward chocolate and come to realize that, provided it's made by the right candy company, a box of chocolates from my mother wasn't such a bad thing.

The boyfriend I was going out with at twenty-one was the one I'd end up marrying, but even then we never got into the whole red-hearts-and-satin kind of Valentine stuff. Romance for us had more involved Saturday morning bike rides in Autumn, in scenic Concord, Massachusetts, and heading to Brighams for a couple of ice-cream sundaes. Scenic rides to the mountains or small coffee shops were more our kind of romance. So, Valentine's Day for us was flowers for me (usually pink or pale lilac-colored) and a nice dinner somewhere. The irony of it all was that after a lifetime of family-centered Valentine's Days, school Valentine's Days, and Valentine's Days for which I bought no gifts and only got gifts from people I wouldn't necessarily have expected one from; it had turned out that having a long-term relationship meant little more than getting pink or light purple flowers (either a bunch or a florist's arrangement) and a nice dinner.

A few years after my boyfriend became my husband, Valentine's Days once again got an added element when our young children came along, and I ended up on the giving end when it came to cards for children and stuffed animals. Equally nice were the new kind of surprise gifts I began to get for Valentine's Day, when a proud child would offer me a carefully hand-made and wrapped treasure - not to mention "zillions" of hand-drawn Valentines (complete with every kind of heart a child can think up to draw). The thing about children is that even when they're very careful about which classmate gets which Valentine, it is with absolutely abandon that they write the "I luv you's" on Valentines they make for their parents. Another aspect to my grown-up Valentine's Days, of course, had become being the mother who sends in the cupcakes or cookies to the school parties. (Actually, I even discovered that I'd become the mother who points out that no Valentine is ever supposed to be considered a "bad" one.)

These days my kids are grown, but, like my own parents when they were still alive, I'll always plan to give each a special card and some candy. That boyfriend who turned into a husband eventually turned into an ex-husband; so, like a lot of divorced women, I kind of have a "been-there/done-that"mentality when it comes to either boyfriends or husbands. This pretty much means that my Valentine's Days are as likely as not to be without flowers or dinners out. While I once may have seen not having a boyfriend on Valentine's Day as "the least of my overall life problems", today I see not having a husband on Valentine's Day as "no problem whatsoever". It's not really a matter of having a "bad attitude" about relationships these days (although it is a little, I have to admit). Mostly, it's just a matter of having lived through enough Valentine's Days to know that, in the scheme of life, getting flowers one day a year and calling one meal a "Valentine's dinner" isn't high on my list.

Whether it's my sister,daughter, or a friend, there's usually some exchange of some little gift. I don't do "big decorations" in the house, but there's always a few Valentine's Day dishes, candles, or knick-knacks out; and I always make sure there are plenty of Conversation Hearts candies, and, if nothing else, pink cupcakes (even though I hate frosting) on the dining room table in case someone stops in. If nobody stops in that's fine too. (Actually, for me, it doesn't quite feel like Valentine's week if I don't get to see a squirrel or two carry a pink cupcake across the snow and up the fence.) The point is on the 14th the house feels a little "Valentine Day-ish" to me if nothing else. Besides, what I really like about Valentine's Day is it gives me the chance to "officially" usher out the non-descript/post-Christmas/New Years environment in the house and put out the clearly non-Christmas-y Valentine's Day things to kind of mark the halfway point in February. After all, once the Valentine's Day stuff is put away (and for me that's the day after Valentine's Day) the next decorations that will be coming out will be associated with Spring-time holidays and Spring in general. In other words, Valentine's Day is, for me, my "official" and "psychological" "closing out" of Winter, regardless of what the rest of the world or the calendar says.

I know how pathetic this could seem to, say, some sixteen-year-old girl somewhere; or even to anyone who, for whatever reasons, has to make a big deal out of Valentine's Day (complete with all that, in my opinion tacky, red hearts and satin). The thing is, though, that I've been some little boys' "Little Red Haired Girl" (as in the Charlie Brown specials, even though my hair is light brown). I've made my share of Crayola-crayon Valentines that have, "I luv you" written as often as space provided. I've had my "torrid but innocent" teenager "love affairs", but I also learned how to have a Happy Valentine's Day without a "romantic kind of" Valentine. I've also, however, lived my share of scenic and romantic situations suitable for any romantic comedy. With an enviable collection of treasures, gifts and Valentines from my children; and an equally enviable gift collection of scented candles, candy dishes, and mini, silk, flower arrangements; on Valentine's Day I'm surrounded by constant reminders of all the ways in which I could never possibly be lonely or missing out.

I love to turn the decorations in the house from Winter reds to Valentine's Day pinks, because from there I'll soon be returned to the season I've always considered the one in which I thrive - Spring.

So, Valentine's Day is, for me, the first sign of Spring. Besides, when it comes down to it, I'm really still pretty much that kid who learned that Valentine's Day can sometimes be about Ginny Dolls, crepe-paper, cards, candy, flowers, or a sweetheart of one kind of another; but when it comes down to it, can be made into what we want to make it - whether we make it with Crayola crayons, pink cupcakes, or the most meaningful of "I love you's".