Valentine's Day Traditions

Valentines’ Day: Some love it, others hate it, some of us would just like to grab a bite to eat with our partner or friends without having to wait an hour or more for a table.

Not only are the restaurants full to the brim with life-long-partners, first-daters, friends celebrating their singleness, and singles drowning their sorrows, but everything is overpriced. Roses, chocolates, little cards, and heart-shaped candies with cute little sayings, all perfectly curated to drive people crazy with need for a person to love them enough to buy them all the little bobbles that commercialism taught us to crave.

And children’s valentines, not only are they expensive like all other Valentines memorabilia, but if you don’t buy them immediately after New Years good luck finding any.

As the mother of a 13-month-old, I assumed I had at least another year before I had to worry about preparing valentines with cute little snacks for a class full of children. Imagine my surprise, and dread, when I walk into my daughter’s daycare February 1st to have a list of student names thrust into my hands.

What kind of treat do you even attach to a valentine for a toddler? Most candies are too small or solid for their little mostly toothless mouths, not to mention packed with sugar.

I’d like to say it’s because I’m terribly busy, but I am an awful procrastinator, so I put off buying valentines till the last weekend before the commercial holiday, meaning I am spending the evening before February 14th crafting suitable little cards with stickers and colored construction paper. Yay.

The things we do for our littles to fit in to society.

My husband and I decided early on in our relationship that we would not prescribe to the usual traditions of Valentine’s Day. We don’t buy flowers, or little, heart-shaped chocolates, or dine in some expensive restaurant. Instead, on the evening of February 14th, when we both get off work, we make a speedy trip to the grocery store for hamburger buns, sliced turkey, and cheese and make our way to some outdoor expanse for a picnic. A sweet and romantic idea if we didn’t live in the Pacific Northwest. More often than not, our picnics end up taking place on icy benches surround by several inches of snow. On the off chance that it is warm enough for the snow to have melted it’s probably raining.

My husband and I like to joke that our Valentines picnic is a reminder that love is painful, but really it reminds us that even when times are hard and miserable, we are still there together, working through the mess. We look forward to these picnics, even with the cold. For weeks leading up to the date, we brainstorm picnic locations, each year trying to find somewhere new to eat hastily made sandwiches and little brownie bites, because in the end it’s about being together, experiencing something new, and laughing in the rain.

This year the holiday and our picnic has taken on a new significance.

This year, our daughter will join us for our unorthodox Valentines tradition, after her more traditional Valentine’s Day party at school. While we wish for her to experience the traditions that have developed in our culture, we hope to instill in her a sense of what it really means to be in a strong relationship, and the ability to see through the haze of commercialism and societal norms to develop her own traditions that work for her and the people she cares about.