Finally . . . I Can Say Happy Valentine's Day

I have to admit that I haven't always been a fan of Valentine's Day. I have a couple of ideas about why this is so:

1. I didn't get married until I was 30, so I had lots of sad, lonely Valentine's Days before then.

2. I spent 8 years at BYU, where you couldn't walk 5 minutes on campus without seeing at least 10 people holding bouquets of flowers or balloons, carrying trays of pink-iced doughnuts, or kneeling down to propose. If Valentine's Day happened to fall on a devotional day, you couldn't find a single person in the 20,000-seat auditorium who wasn't wearing pink or red. BYU-Hawaii was the worst--Valentine's Day was a bigger holiday than Christmas . . . my ward even had a Valentine's fireside where a newly engaged couple spoke about how much they loved each other. I'm getting nauseous just thinking about all of it (although it's probably time to take some more Diclectin anyway. . . .)

Anyway, you'd think all that would have changed when I found Jason. My hubby tried to make Valentine's Day special with dinners at the Keg, bouquets of roses, breakfasts in bed, and chocolate hearts, but my cynical outlook on February 14 was so deeply entrenched that I still had trouble getting into Valentine's Day.

Enter Benjamin.

 

As we all know, Benjamin LOVES holidays. I have never seen a person go so crazy for Halloween, and then, of course, there's his Santa obsession at Christmas. I didn't really tell him much about Valentine's Day until last year . . . but once he heard about chocolate hearts and showing our love for others on a special day, it didn't take long for him to start to radiate Valentine's Day enthusiasm. So, we made heart-shaped cookies, heart-shaped grilled cheese sandwiches . . . we invited Grandma and Grandpa over for heart-shaped pizzas. It was a lot of fun.

 

This year I actually looked forward to Valentine's Day, and started getting Ben excited about it a few weeks ago. Every day he would ask, "Is tomorrow Valentine's Day?"

Then Jason surprised me with my first very own video camera--which he said was a Valentine's/birthday present--just in time for our trip to California next week.

 

So, now I'm saying what's not to like about Valentine's Day???

 

It took a while, but I've finally got the Valentine's Day spirit. Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!