A few weeks ago, Dan and I celebrated our eighth Valentine's Day together. Well, sort of. Last year was actually the first year we were together on Valentine's Day. Love long distance! The first one was my fault though, I worked on Valentine's Day in high school. Had I known we wouldn't celebrate another one together for 6 years maybe I would have figured out a way to take it off.
We've never made a big deal out of the holiday. Similar to other holidays, what we really wanted most was to be able to spend time together, presents didn't matter all that much. We still usually sent each other something small...candy, a card, maybe some cheesy valentine's thing. My last year in college I really wanted Dan to get me an Edible Arrangement-so much so that I sent him the link to the groupon for it and drove to the middle of nowhere to pick it up because even I thought a $15 delivery fee was ridiculous. I sent him Star Wars cookbooks in exchange (thank you Amazon prime 2-day delivery!) One year I made an impulse purchase at CVS to send in his package-red plastic handcuffs with some stupid saying on them. Have to say I regret that one seeing as they are still in our apartment.
Frequently we'd end up getting each other 2 cards-one meaningful card and one funny one. Last year I think we may have actually just gotten each other real sentimental cards, it was our first Valentine's Day together after all. We did everything we were supposed to do-Dan got home early from work, we both dressed up, he bought me chocolate, I bought him lingerie (yes that is a present for him, not me!), went out to dinner at an Italian restaurant...I'll let you fill in the blanks.
This year, lets just say we're over that. Dan got home later from work than usual (damn all those people trying to get to Valentine's dinners), we dined on fine Thai takeout from a place down the street, lounged around in sweats, got each other funny cards, bonded with the cat, I bought him new pants for work, he bought me some jewelry because we got a card in the mail saying it was on sale and I told him I liked it, and had a very elegant dinner on tv tables while watching the Olympics. The highlight of the day for him was probably the fact that I woke up early to make him cinnamon rolls for breakfast, but even those were from a can. One of his cards to me was about bacon, the other one was fifty shades of grey themed, my card for him basically told him to look me in the eyes instead of a foot lower. There's a lot of comfort in not feeling the pressure to make Valentine's Day, or any other day perfect like there might be for newer couples. We still make certain not to let our relationship fall out of focus, that was a major topic of discussion during our marriage mentoring, but with all the craziness that is going on in our lives right now, spending time together is still the most important part of celebrating the day of love.
