I Heart Valentine's Day

For many, “heart” is just an anagram for “hater” when it comes to Valentine’s Day. The holiday is supposed to be all about love, but instead, it becomes all about stress, confusion, frustration, and getting ripped the hell off for a bunch of dying daisies and crappy carnations.

But if you do a little planning, and follow some calm, thoughtful advice, then you may actually find that Valentine’s Day is an enjoyable time to celebrate the love of your life.

You will not be receiving the aforementioned thoughtful advice from me, though. That’s because I don’t really have any good tips for you, and always seem to be rushing around at the last minute – paying 80 bucks for flowers from a street vendor; snagging the last box of candy from Walgreen’s; and rushing to the corner store to buy the final ingredients for a disastrous home-cooked meal, after deciding on the menu earlier that day.

Still, Jaimi and I have made it through 2 Valentine’s Days already, and plan on spending many more together – although next weekend, her Mom will be visiting us, so I’ll be doubling the order of flowers and candies.

If we’ve lasted this long, then Valentine’s Day can’t be as crucial to our long-term happiness as Hallmark would lead us to believe. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I do a totally shitty job. Usually something turns out pretty well – whether it be the fish I prepare, the little love note I write (it should always rhyme, if at all possible), or the cash I hand to her.

Still, the more I think about it - and the more I struggle to offer some useful advice - I guess the most important point is, don’t try too hard. Don’t succumb to the commercial pressure. Don’t drop a cool grand on an overpriced dinner, dozens of roses delivered to her office by a singing clown, and a tower of Godiva chocolates.

You’d be better off to sock that money away in a low-risk interest-bearing account, and save it for her birthday – that’s the one you really shouldn’t fuck up.

So take it from me and dial down your stress level. A tiny bit of planning will go a long way:


- Find a couple easy recipes online, and figure out where you can buy the ingredients. Make sure it’s on your way home.

- Expect to get ripped off for the flowers. There’s really no way around it. Resign yourself to this fact, and you may feel marginally better about it.

- Instead of candies, buy cupcakes or some other relatively freshly-baked dessert of some sort (not Entenmann’s, or Keebler’s). Make sure you at least suspect she would like it.


And that’s about it. You won’t win any awards for thoughtfulness, or awesomeness, but you won’t finish last in those categories either.

Best of luck next Saturday. I know you’ll need it.

Subscribe to my sweet feed