Valentine's Day, a Personal History

I'm never sure how I'm supposed to feel about Valentine's Day. It seems like the educated, enlightened person is required to view V-Day as a meaningless Hallmark holiday characterized by pointless consumerism. We're supposed to feel that we shouldn't need a greeting card company to remind us to tell people we love them! We should question why we need an obnoxious holiday that makes single people feel left out.

But, the thing is, I have always liked Valentine's Day, even when I was single. Below is a brief history of my personal Valentine's Day experiences.

In elementary school, Valentine's Day was awesome. Candy, hearts, crafts, an opportunity for a class party ... what's not to love? A highlight was when my kindergarten boyfriend, Derek McLaughlin, brought me a heart-shaped box of chocolates, and I kissed him. It would be years before I saw that kind of Valentine's Day action again.

When I was a kid, I made sure my mom bought me the kinds of Valentines that came with candy. Nobody wants a simple card when you can have candy! Most of today's commercial Valentines for children come with some form of add-on like candy or stickers, but when I was a kid you had to DIY if you wanted candy to come with your cards. The most popular form was to stick Conversation Heart candies in the envelope with your cards, which was kind of gross. Those hearts are pretty gross anyway (they are made of the same stuff as Necco wafers), and it's even more disgusting when they're semi-stuck to paper. So it was an especially big coup when my mom scored me some miniature packs of gummi bears to put in my Valentines one year. I was the most popular kid in class ... for that one day.

What I did not like as a kid were some of the pre-printed messages on the cards you bought. Like, why overly romantic things like "Be mine" or "You're special"? Since you were required to give a Valentine to everyone, why didn't they just say "Happy Valentine's Day"? This became especially anxiety-producing in my later elementary years, when I was worried that if I gave those cards to boys, they would think I like liked them. I remember finding the cards with the least romantic messages and reserving those for boys. As if anybody read anything into those messages. As if anybody read them at all.

I'm sure Valentine's Day existed when I got to middle school, but I don't remember anything about it. Maybe I blocked it out of my memory because it probably involved the adolescent social horror known at the Candy Gram. You know this one? Some group or club hosts a fund raiser where kids can pay a dollar to send messages with candy to their friends, and then on Valentine's Day, a representative of the club interrupts your sixth-period class to deliver the messages, in front of everyone, so it's obvious that Lisa S. got 27 candy grams and Shannon C. didn't get any.

But actually I'm sure Valentine's Day was still fun when I was in middle school, because my parents probably got us candy or some other small token, and I seem to recall we usually got to go to a restaurant for dinner.

In high school I became aware that Valentine's Day was for people in relationships, and that I wasn't one of them. I was jealous that I never got to be one of those girls who got a giant bouquet of flowers delivered to her at school (to high school, really?) and then got to proudly lug it around campus as a badge of honor signifying her attractiveness to the opposite sex. Oh, man, this is such a hassle to have to carry around this huge jungle of flowers that my boyfriend spent two months of his earnings from the movie theater on. As jealous as I was of the flower girls (and maybe that's why I love arranging flowers now), I still thought Valentine's Day was fun. Just like when I was a little kid, I figured Valentine's Day was about chocolate and hearts and getting little gifts from my parents ... what's not to love?

In college I remember a lot of V-Day "friend dates" and pity gifts from platonic male friends. I remember that I still pretended to hate Valentine's Day, even as I loved every chocolate-filled minute of it. The way I saw it, Valentine's Day was an opportunity to acknowledge all your loved ones, not just loved ones in the romantic sense.

Then I met Bill my senior year of college. The first Valentine's Day we were together, when we were dating for about three months, we did the full traditional Valentine's Day date and gift exchange. I remember being at the Hallmark store agonizing over cards to get, worried about the ones that said I love you because we hadn't really said that yet. Oh, naive little 22-year-old Shannon, you needn't worry. Men don't care about cards. Your boyfriend reads as much into the message on your $3 Hallmark card as the boys in elementary school read into your generic boxed Valentines. You might as well give your new boyfriend Bill the same card you gave to Humberto G. back in fifth grade.

I did get Bill a gift to go with the card, some pajama bottoms I got at Old Navy along with my special outfit I picked out just for the Valentine's Day date. Doesn't this rocking sweater/skirt combo scream "hot date"?

Valentine's Day 2000, featuring the roses Bill gave me and my psycho roommate's surfboard. And apparently one of those old-looking Pottery Barn phones.

After we took this picture, I made my poor graduate student boyfriend take me out to dinner, and then we walked on the beach at night and got ice cream. We were so cute.

Bill went away to law school in Chicago the following September, and I stayed in Los Angeles, so Valentine's Days 2001-2003 were part of our long-distance relationship phase. But I almost always visited him around Valentine's Day because I had three-day weekends for Lincoln's Birthday and President's Day around mid-February. We always exchanged simple gifts and gallivanted around Chicago, mostly while I complained about how cold it was.

Then on Valentine's Day 2003, around 2:30 a.m., we got engaged! Bill conjured up a plan to take me straight from the airport to the University of Chicago campus, stand among the trees lit up with twinkling lights, get down on one knee, and put a ring on my frozen ungloved finger.

Yeah, can you believe it? I was awake at 2:30 a.m.!

In our married life, I have always insisted that we acknowledge Valentine's Day in some way, but not go over-the-top. I think it's nice to take time to tell people we love them, even if it takes a greeting-card holiday to remind us to do it. He usually gets me flowers and I usually get him chocolate. Everyone's happy. And then rather than going out to dinner at a crowded restaurant, I try to cook something extra-special. These attempts have largely been failures. My cooking skills are not of "extra-special" caliber. I can master the basics, but when I try to take a step beyond, it's never that good. What I should be saying is, "Happy Valentine's Day! I made chili in the Crock Pot!"

Actually, that probably would go over big. Instead I'm making this recipe tonight called Mock Lobster, which I got off of Allrecipes. Because nothing says Valentine's Day like lobster, and with Mock Lobster you have the side benefit of getting the obnoxious B-52's song "Rock Lobster" stuck in your head all day, too. You're welcome.

Anyway, I like Valentine's Day, and I always have. As I have mentioned in the past, since moving to Illinois I also like Valentine's Day because by February you need some hearts and flowers and red and pink to brighten up the dull winter days. And now that Nathan is old enough to know what's going on in the world, it's fun to make Valentines with him, too.

So, Happy Valentine's Day everyone! Don't hate it for the commercialism or the emphasis on romance. Love it for the chocolate.