Happy Sunday and Happy Valentine’s Day!  

When I sent Mr. Smith off to work on January 4 after two 4-day holiday weekends in a row, I wondered how I was going to make it through January with no holidays or long weekends.  Now here we are, smack in the middle of February!

My granddaughters have been busily preparing to celebrate and have spent time working on their Valentine boxes.  This brought back warm memories of my time in first grade and the excitement of taking an empty cereal box to school to decorate for classmates to put their Valentines in.  

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My grandsons on the other hand were not so interested in making fancy boxes and took reusable grocery bags to collect their greetings.  Sam did write out his Valentines, whereas Henry and Eli decided to just throw candy at the other kids and be done with it.   Eli explained, “It’s okay, I’m not really a fan of the love thing.”  Oh Eli, we’ll remind you of that in ten years.

One of my favorite things about the St. Valentine holiday is that it has grown beyond roses and chocolates. Apparently, we have the fictional character Leslie Knope of Parks and Recreation to thank for the creation of “Galentine’s Day”, a day of women celebrating women.  Leslie explained, “Every February 13, my ladyfriends and I leave our husbands and our boyfriends at home, and we just come and kick it, breakfast style.  Ladies celebrating ladies.  It’s like Lilith Fair, minus the angst. Plus frittatas.” With February 13 being unofficially added to the calendar, it is now more a “season” of love than one stressful day where significant others feel considerable pressure to create a perfect experience.  Acknowledging that there are many different kinds of love and none of them perfect, The Washington Post offers up this list of romantic movies showing love in all its permutations.

This year more than ever we need an excuse to disrupt the banality of our daily life and a little creativity may be required.  COVID-19 has made the possibility of our typical celebrations challenging and unsafe. Like so many, I am missing restaurants and longing to indulge in a long, leisurely meal at our favorite bistro, but alas we are waiting. Out on our walk the other afternoon, we passed our favorite Thai restaurant.  The centerpiece on the sweet little front window table is no longer a candle, it is a bottle of hand sanitizer.  Nothing says romance quite like that.

Mr. Smith and I rarely dined out on Valentine’s Day even pre-Pandemic, but we still endeavor to make the day pleasing.  Today we’ll get out for a long walk and then do some reading.  I’m planning to drag every candle I can find into the bathroom and have a lovely candlelit soak with my best bath oil.  We’re making pizza for dinner, sharing a bottle of Chianti and watching Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy.  And we are still each other’s favorite Valentines.    

C’est la vie.