and flowers
When the doorbell rang, I ignored it. People who come to the front door in the middle of the week are generally trying to get us to give them real money for nonexistent magazines or to ask if it's legal to park in front of our house (the fire hydrant should have tipped them off that it's not). Before the housing bubble burst, there were sometimes real estate agents, handing out business cards with pictures of themselves and telling us to call if we ever decided to sell.
But, eventually, I went downstairs and, through the curtains, I could see the outline of a man holding an enormously tall bouquet. There were roses and lilies and daisies and irises and hydrangea and some other flowers I didn't know the names of. They filled two vases and I set one on the kitchen table and one on the mantel over the fireplace. And, as I stepped back, evaluated, then pulled out a few stems to snip with the kitchen shears, it occurred to me that there haven't been cut flowers in the house since, well, you know.
The candy? I bought a not-too-big box for myself at the drugstore. And took a bite out of every piece, round and square, but, in the end, threw all but three of them away.
Did you celebrate Valentine's Day with: flowers? candy? wine? a romantic dinner? um, other?
Or did you skip the whole thing this year?
I wanted to do a poll, but, sadly, the percentages and mapping don't seem to work with multiple answers.
40 comments:
We skipped the whole thing. My husband volunteered to work late for a co-worker who is in a new relationship so that the co-worker could surprise his girlfriend with a night out. Strangely enough, this didn't bother me. I'm not that big on Valentine's day.
Jill: I'm actually not all that big on Valentine's Day myself. This is the first one I've done anything at all for in years and years.
We always have a very low-key celebration. We gave up trying to eat out years ago and instead get takeout and cake. We spent the evening in front of the tv watching Lost LOL.
ooh, the flowers sound gorgeous! Both R and I only realized what day it was when we went on google -- independently. We're geeks, obviously. In our defense, the day is not celebrated here particularly (we'll have Sant Jordi later) so it's easy to forget about it.
we went out for food and I got some tulips. Nothing to major.
Pretty picture of the rose! No, I didn't do anything - I mean, I have no one to do anything with. I suppose though I could have done something for myself. Hmm, why don't I ever think to do things just for myself? I like that you bought chocolates and tasted them all but threw most away. The doorman gave me chocolate - that was nice of him (but he gave chocolate to everyone that went through the lobby yesterday).
Beautiful photos, and wow, how exciting to see a big bouquet of flowers arriving!
I love to do that with chocolate.
I'll buy a discount box today, get the good stuff at half off. Take a taste and hand them out to the kids.
As if they need more sugar.
Julie: I'm right there with you on buying the discounted stuff. Though it's all for me!!!
A tiny bit of fancy candy, and homemade cards.
And wine for me. But that part is par for the course.
I got tulips, which are my favorite. Then I had some wine by myself while my husband went to school. It was a nice quiet night.
Normally we haven't done anything - just kid stuff (mandatory school valentines) and I make a heart shaped chocolate cake for us all. Of course this year we had had a big fight the night before - by which I really mean in the very earliest hours of Valentines Day. Because neither of us can stand the chilliness the day after, I felt compelled to cook one of his favorite dinners -which he had cold on the stove after have been in traffic for 1 1/2 because he took the long way home to do the week's shopping (so I could skip it today) and go to Borders to find chocolates and a DVD. Honestly, I don't know what kind of operation we are running over here. It's a comedy of errors!
We don't do a lot but last night the huz came home with a gorgeous arrangement of flowers in a pot, including two statuesque birds of paradise and two proteas -- flowers that are native to South Africa and have always held significance for us. I also got chocolate but since we're still working on Swee'pea's cake, I didn't crack them yet.
We had dinner reservations at one of my favourite restaurants, but cancelled last minute because I was too sick to go anywhere.
We had dinner with some neighbors, we grilled kabobs. Yum! Like a taste of summer in the winter. :)
To my husband and son I gave books that I knew they would enjoy. My husband brought home a beautiful bouquet of flowers -- I have no idea what they are, but they look very tropical and exotic (helps me to forget this long snowy winter). He cooked dinner and for dessert we indulged in a very decadent ice cream cake that he had purchased (Raspberry Truffle something or other -- I was too busy enjoying to really pay attention -- there was much chocolate so I was happy). Simple, but very nice.
My husband's out of town so I just ate a lot of chocolate...
My son had a screaming defiant fight with me and then my passive agressive SIL called me and drove me up a wall.
I swear to God, I want to cancel Fucking Valentines Day. I do.
Skip. Probably for perpetuity. Unless you count the pizza and beer (uuurrrp) and the candy I ripped off from my toddler's stash.
Skip. I don't care for holidays like that.
We do exchange small gifts and cards. Making a "special" dinner on a Thursday night was a big scramble but I did it anyway (cursing a bit under my breath all the while.)
But I wanted to do something to mark the day even if flowers cost twice as much and the cards are all corny.
I always do that with those boxes of candy - figuring that at least one piece in the box of 5000 pieces will taste good. Alas, there's never a worthwhile piece.
I celebrated Valentine's Day by eating a pizza, sitting on my sofa, watching the BBC in my PJs. If I had balls, I would have been scratching them.
Nope, nothing for us. But the flowers look/sound lovely. And the chocolates!
what? you threw all but three pieces of chocolate away?????
I got a nice bottle of wine from Mother and some chocolates filled with baily's from a friend. It was pretty much a basic thursday around here.
Hubby got me a card and a dr pepper. We went for a walk and then watched Planet Earth. Pretty much a typical evening for us lately.
Usually we just do cards - this year we were both so hopeless that we agreed not to bother with it. I did get a small bunch of roses and lilies as a surprise. We had spaghetti in front of ER.
We don't make a big deal of it, some wine, a card - but secretly I would love for a beautiful bunch of flowers to arrive!
Life doesn't stop for holidays, so after my husband's board meeting, he came home and we had a glass of wine together. The child went to bed. We had a few chocolates, and then we went to bed.*
I didn't mind it, it's life. It can't always be romantic dinners out, although those are nice, too!
*details removed for decency.
i think i am the only one here that is a total sucker for valentine's day.
we had lots of candy. and sake. and pizza. and some presents. mostly candy, though.
we've always hated valentines day, even before we found out we were infertile and had a dead baby.
amateur night kept us indoors every year, so i designated it "try a new sexual act" night.
we didn't do anything this year.
We usually skip the whole things since it happens so soon after our anniversary.
I do always buy myself a special fancy chocolate box, though. The best stuff is offered at this time!
He brought home tulips and a chocolate cheesecake. We exchanged gifts and did dinner and a movie. Treats like that are rare for us since he's in grad school and it was nice to do something special to break up the awful, freezing monotony of winter.
We had a lovely Valentine's Day (handmade cards, small gifts) until we wound up in the ER for our daughter's bronchiolitis. This time last year, we were in the NICU with her. I'm starting to think that the day is cursed for her.
That's a lot of flowers. Sounds lovely.
I love the idea of taking a bite out of every piece and then throwing them away.
We forgot about Valentines Day until halfway through the day, and didn't do anything special but it was still the best yet.
It's one of those consumer traps to us so we don't do it up big at all. This year it was burgers out followed by truffles in. I didn't eat the burger but I ate every single one of those truffles.
Several years ago I was at a show around this time of year, when the frontman announced that his mom always gave him and his brother horror movies for Valentine's Day because she said "blood is the color of love." My friends and I thought that was hysterical and never forgot it.
So this year I rented a bunch of horror movies, bought myself the largest box of chocolate I have EVER bought myself, and sat in my apartment eating them and shrieking and laughing at the films. I really rather enjoyed myself.
I'm usually single on Valentine's Day, but I really think it is a lot of fun. Just one of those silly, fun holidays.
We officially banned the holiday. I spent it home with a sick Monkey anyway, but by previous agreement there was no flowers or candy. Much calmer, and feeling much less indoctrinated. I think it must've been our local NPR station's Valentine's Day fund raiser that finally got both of us too fed up with this particular celebration to participate. I just couldn't hear one more break for rose pushing. Gha.
We mutually agreed years ago to never celebrate Valentine's Day. I hate feeling manipulated into things. Life is so much nicer now that we don't have the pressure of V-day.
Oh, I love those photos. That one of the chocolates is fabulous; the chocolate almost looks like a face, it is too cool. You always blow me away with your angles.
We were not going to celebrate then we celebrated with wine and chocolates, sort-of. Glad it's over.
Dh always spoils me on Valentines and we do celebrate every year and go out somewhere fancy for dinner. He also sent me a bouquet of flowers to work and got me a gift.
We used to celebrate, but now not so much. We spent the evening with friends at band practice, and came home to eat some cheap fast food fried chicken for dinner. DH broke our agreement of not celebrating and bought me a big heart full of chocolates and gave me cards from him and from our angel.
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