Valentines Day is Not For Wimps

lovebirds by smarnad via freedigitalphotos.net

lovebirds by smarnad via freedigitalphotos.net

I know a lot of people feel pressure around the December holidays, what with coming up with the perfect card, trying to buy eight nights worth of Hanukah gifts that make your kids kvell but don’t make your wallet groan, and attempting to make it snow in Santa Barbara. Despite what your friends may have told you, I’ve tried both the disco version and the salsa style and I’m 99.37% sure that doing a snow dance doesn’t work.

But the end of the year holiday pressure is nothing compared to Valentine’s Day. It’s not what you think … so quit trying to picture me in my underwear. Despite the overabundance of Victoria’s Secret ads, I don’t feel the need to get in touch with my inner porn star this month or surprise my honey with a heart tattoo. No, it’s my inner Martha Stewart who’s tugging on my ear this week.

Once upon a time, long, long ago, when my husband and I were young and in love and didn’t know any better, we started a Valentine’s Day tradition of making something for each other.

It all started with a six-pack of wine coolers. I made that first painting on a cardboard box canvas, with nail polish and lipstick–I’d had too many Bartles & Jaymes to go out and buy actual art supplies.

Little did I know what a monster I’d unleashed.

Zak made me a window box the next year, and a tradition was born.

There would be none of that wimpy Hallmark holiday stuff for us. No silly stuffed teddy bears, boxes of candy or overpriced roses for us. No sir. We wouldn’t get sucked into the commercialism of Valentine’s Day like those other saps. Never mind that I like roses and chocolate. I don’t even hate teddy bears. But buying something off the shelf for Valentine’s Day was for people who weren’t creative. Our gifts would come straight from our hands, and our hearts.

Over the years I’ve made books out of doilies and heart stickers, penned poems and plays, glued popsicle sticks into picture frames, and fashioned pink and red plastic wires in boxes. I’ve made candles, soap, ceramics, mosaics, pop-up cards, scrapbooks, and just about anything else you can find in the craft aisle. You name it, I’ve made it, and I’ve inadvertently ingested gallons of glitter and glue along the way, which can’t be good for my few remaining brain cells.

After 18 years of romantic, ah, gestures, I’m beginning to see why those Hallmark people keep resorting to talking teddy bears and puerile poetry. They’ve been coming up with Valentine ideas for a bazillion years now and I’m ready to wimp out after less than two decades.

While Hallmark cranks out hundreds of cards and cheap little dust collectors each year, I struggle to come up with one measly new Valentine idea for my husband every February.

There are only five days left until V-Day and I’ve got a new challenge this time.

See, last year our son, Oedipus, pitched a fit when he found out that mommy made daddy a set of fuzzy heart-shaped golf club covers for Valentine’s Day, while all he got was a new soccer ball that wasn’t even handmade. So now I’m feeling pressure to create not one, but two perfect Valentine’s Day gifts.

Do you think I could get away with putting handmade bows around a puppy and a beer?

If not, does anyone know where I can get a beer making kit? And, no, I don’t want the puppy making kit. The last thing I need around here on V-Day is some bitch in Victoria’s Secret.

I’ve got it! Two birds, one stone. Honey–I wrote this column just for you. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on February 8, 2008.

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