Growing up, my dad raised the bar high. My dad is first in line I assure you to say that Valentine's Day is over-rated, Hallmark sponsored, and dumb in the sense that you need a day annually to remind others you love them. Shouldn't well all go out of our way daily to be thoughtful, loving, and generous in some fashion? Would it hurt anyone to see romance 24/7? Well, that's a different conversation to have anway.
But where I am going with this is, no matter how my dad agreed with the millions that Valentine's Day is "dumb" that never stopped him from leaving notes for my mom, sending me a note and rose to school every year, and being the sweetest valentine there ever was every day and even on "Valentine's Day".
In America we go all our for everyone. Maybe after the day got tainted with "Single-awareness day" and rebels started wearing black etc, we wised up and said love shouldn't be limited to a significant other. Love is something that can be celebrated beyond the romantic sentiment. We wear red to school or work, make heart-shaped breakfasts for our kids, buy or make valentines for friends in family, pass out valentines to classmates and leave them in shoeboxes decorated with loads of glitter, pinks, reds, and more for our valentine's day parties at school, go off to high school and decorate friends' lockers, hope we have boyfriends to celebrate with but realize our best friends make better valentines anyway, and go off to college where we celebrate having each other and get dressed up, leave notes under our roommates doors, make dinner, drink, dance......then repeat this cycle as teachers, wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, whatevers! Maybe this all sounds ridiculous to you or brings back great memories as you read along, but these are memories I have of this silly day each year.
In other counties, in particularly Ireland, I learnt that it's more an exchange between significant others. I'm glad in America we spread the love around and maybe others do too and its just the experiences I've had thus far that have shaped my new opinions. Nothings's worse than being 'single' and feeling the singleness on a day you know someone's gettin' some lovin'. Yuck. So some of my best valentines day memories have been made having dinner and cocktails with my best friends. To this day I wish I could still spend Valentine's Day with my roommates and best friends cooking pasta, drinking wine, going to see Channing Tatum movies at the theatre, and busting out moves DT at the loft where we get champagne and roses at midnight. Those were great times!
Nothing too mushy to say about this year, although after 3 consecutive years of mailed valentines and Skype dates, it was cool to be in the same place with D this year.
I went to work and celebrated with my class first. Valentine's Day fell on a Friday, so all week we'd been building up to our class party. Our kiddos went home full of cupcakes and carrying cards, chocolates, and roses for their moms. It was a fun day and sweet to see their mamas' faces when they saw their goodies.
 |
| Happy Valentine's Day from Miss Melanie's Class; 14/02/14; Photo By: M. |
 |
| Dublin; 14/02/14; Photo By: M. |
 |
| Dublin; 14/02/14; Photo By: M. |
 |
| Dublin; 14/02/14; Photo By: M. |
 |
| Dublin; 14/02/14; Photo By: M. |
To be honest, I know D never reads this blog but he would be absolutely mortified if I said anything about him a) remembering it was Valentine's Day, b) planning a thoughtful date and c) being anyone's "Valentine"- so I won't even go there. But it was a fun day.
:-)
I hope wheresoever you were on V-Day this year, you felt the love and sent a little love too. Not that you need a day annually to deserve it.
Cheers,
M
No comments:
Post a Comment