Happy Valentine's Day!

My birthday falls quite near Valentine's Day, and one of the things I told my husband early in our dating was not to give me a "combo" gift. I had learned that men who combined my birthday with Valentine's Day probably weren't worth the time and effort. After all, who wants their birthday combined with the closest holiday? Everybody wants their own day.

This year, things were tight, so, when I opened my birthday gift, I found a beautiful amethyst heart necklace. I was very pleased, but then my husband said, "It's a heart. See? Combo gift."

Of course, after 11 years, I thought this was funny and told him that he'd done a good enough job wooing me that I could let him off the hook this one time. ;)

Just as our family rules about Valentine's Day have changed, I noticed that the "rules" at school have changed as well.

When I was a kid, we made Valentine's sacks out of lunch bags covered with red construction paper hearts. Every child in class brought those tiny paper Valentine's cards with TO: and FROM: on them. No extra messages. No candy. No cookies. No games.

But times have changed. Last night, I helped the kids put together their Valentines. They wrote names, applying the proper stickers, then we taped suckers to the inside of the card.

When my kidlets came home today and poured out their Valentine's sacks (still lunchbags with construction paper hearts glued on), it looked more like Halloween than the Valentine's Days I remember from my childhood. Each of them had several chocolate hearts, lollipops, candy bars, M&Ms, and other assorted candies. Some people even sent toys! I guess next year I'll have to get more than just lollipops. ;)

The other thing I thought was interesting was the Valentines themselves. Of course, when I was a kid, the Valentines were less commercial (even though we still bought them). They were all sort of generic hearts with corny sayings inside. Now, all the kids' Valentines are product endorsements! The Valentines I bought for the kids to distribute, for example, were Over the Hedge and Disney Princesses (we have to make our Disney donation, you see).

I was fascinated by the Valentines my children received. There were Hello Kitties, Power Rangers, Iron Man, Barbie, something called Princess Jewel, Daisy Duck, Spongebob Squarepants, Herbie the Love Bug, Cars cards, Snoopy, and Superman. These were in addition to more generic puppies and kitties, baseball, or flowers cards. I had no idea kids' Valentine's cards were such big sellers!

In any event, here's hoping everyone has a great day to spend with the one they love.