Valentines Day

 

Today is one of my favourite holidays! It's the holiday that people love to hate! Some see it as the perfect opportunity to show someone that you have a crush on them, or that they are the apple of your eye! Other people think it's an excuse for businesses to pressure people into spending more money, or a way to shame single people.

In my family, Valentine's Day is seen as a silly excuse to be extra romantic to your partner, and extra thoughtful to your friends and family. We do this in 4 ways:

Valentine's Cards - We make cards for each other! They are nearly always hand made. I send three every year - one to my husband Will, one to my dad, and one to my lovely aunt Madeline. My aunt Madeline has sent me a hand made card every Valentine's Day since I was born! I now have 26 cards, and many of them are framed on my childhood bedroom wall! Traditionally the cards are meant to be anonymous, so we always sign them from 'your secret admirer' with lots of question marks! It's silly fun! You don't have to spend a lot of money to make someone's day.Flowers - It is traditional to send red roses to your one and only. This is, admittedly, totally commercial, but I love that Will orders his from a local florist. That way he gets the best of both worlds! He can 'surprise' me with a beautiful bouquet, and he can support a local small business! Some people also buy chocolates for their other half.A Romantic Dinner for 2 - On the evening of the 14th of February, most restaurants across the UK are full to the brim. If you want to get a table at a nice restaurant, you've got your work cut out for you! Sometimes Will and I like to support our local pub, but often we prefer to stay at home. Last year, Will prepared a surprise 3-course meal for me. He put in a lot of effort, and I was on cloud nine! I really appreciated the time and thought that he put into it. It inspired him to cook more frequently, which has been great. Lots of supermarkets offer meal deals. The most popular one is the Marks and Spencer Dine in for 2!  You can get a starter, a main, a side, a dessert and a bottle of fizz or wine or a box of chocolates to serve two, all for just £20. It's a very tempting offer! Baking - This is our family tradition, not a typical British tradition. My mum likes to make delicious heart-shaped shortbread biscuits, topped with chocolate. Last year in lockdown, she was so sad that we wouldn't be able to eat her legendary biscuits together. On Valentine's Day I received a knock at the door from the postman. He was holding a package labelled 'fragile'. I opened the package and it was full of my mum's biscuits! I laughed my socks off! We ate them together on zoom!

All in all, I really enjoy Valentine's Day. I enjoyed it when I was single, as I have a lot of family traditions. It is even more exciting now that I can celebrate it with Will.