My husband and I agree to differ about Valentine’s Day. He hates it and calls it a Hallmark holiday. Grudgingly, he will make or buy a card but his heart just isn’t in  it. I don’t get hurt anymore but I do feel a twinge of regret that he’s not a flowers and chocolate kind of guy.

I happen to love Valentine’s Day: the cards, the silver-wrapped chocolates, the heart shaped gifts. It’s fun to browse the jewel-filled windows of The Clay Pot and Treasure Chest. Weeks ahead of time, they are harbingers of the big bright red spot in the middle of February.

As a girl, I enjoyed making valentines with white lace doilies or buying those tiny "Will You Be Mine" cards from Woolworths and giving them to
each and every member of my  elementary school class.

Even now, I shop for cards well in advance, carefully choosing the right card for friends and family. It is not lost on me that the stores are cashing in on these small gestures of love. I spent $39.99 at Possibilities, the newish card shop on Seventh Avenue (the closest thing we have to a Hallmark).  That’s nearly forty dollars plus postage for this much maligned holiday.

Yeesh. The commercial nature of the day really is quite appalling. Shop after shop on Seventh Avenue has heart shaped decorations taped to their front windows — just another way to say: "Spend Money." All the restaurants post signs announcing their Valentine’s Day dinners. It is said to be one of the two worst days of the year to eat out (the other is Mother’s Day). 

But for all that it has going against it, Valentine’s Day does gently force us to acknowledge and say, "I love you" to the people we love in our lives. How bad can that be? It doesn’t need to cost a lot of money. But even when  it does, it doesn’t hurt to spread a little love around.

Yours from Brooklyn,
OTBKB