Happy Valentine's Day!

 

Today Valentine's Day seems mostly like an excuse to chivvy one person into buying expensive jewelry or gifts for another (with the burden being especially on young men to buy diamonds to "prove their love" to a young woman). And indeed it's always been associated with "courting" and romantic love in some way. But children also have celebrated Valentine's Day in school in past years. A big box was covered with red paper and you bought Valentine cards at the five-and-ten cent store for all your classmates and dropped them in the box. Back in those days children didn't have as many allergies as they do now, and cupcakes and candy were often provided on the holiday to be enjoyed after the cards were distributed.

 

❥ 1950s Children's Valentine Cards 

 

❥ 1960s Children's Valentine Cards 

 

Children in the 19th century didn't have pre-made Valentine cards and relied on their imaginations to have a successful Valentine gathering. The second half of this chapter of the classic novel What Katy Did shows inventive Katy hosting an clever Valentine celebration despite the fact she is confined to bed after a spinal injury.

 

❥ Chapter 10: St. Nicholas and St. Valentine 

Happy Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day

There are romantic things I like. I love long skirts, for example. The wonderful swish makes me feel so feminine, and to my absolute disgust, I grew up in the 60s with those dreadful sacklike miniskirts. I hated them. Me, I wanted to come through a door looking like Loretta Young at the beginning of her famous television anthology show, with her beautiful skirt swirling as she entered. But I'm not much into the traditional romantic things. Diamonds leave me cold. Colored stones are preferable, but I really think it's a waste of money spending it on jewelry. (They were advertising a $2000 "tennis bracelet" on television once and I turned to James and said, "If you ever buy me anything that costs $2000, it better be in a big box with 'Dell' on the side.") I have costume jewelry that's just as pretty, and it comes with wonderful associations, because it was made by Trifari, where my mom and dad met, where Dad spent his career, and where I worked for one summer and then full time three and a half years. I still miss the people I worked with.

I'm not much on romance books, either. I have the ones my friend Laura wrote, and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Some of my cozy mysteries or fantasy books have romances in them; some I can take and leave. I'm tired of the whitebread gorgeous woman runs into the whitebread gorgeous guy trope. I'd really rather they not fall in love at all.

Ah, but I do have my media couples. That I will happily indulge in. Max and 99 from Get Smart were my first "'ship" ('ship as in "relationshipping," a fannish term). One of my favorite couples for almost 40 years has been Christina and Will from Flambards. And who didn't love Tom and Barbara from The Good Life (Good Neighbors)? Plus there was the 'ship that never got to port, thanks to those @$%!$! at AMC: Betty Roberts and Scott Sherwood of Remember WENN..

Our own Valentine's Day was much more traditional. James had to go into work, because it was not a rainy day (and thankfully he had no doctor's appointment). When he came home I had the shrimp prepped and we collaborated on a sauce, and for dinner we had shrimp scampi and a cucumber salad, with blueberry pie for dessert, and a new episode of The Orville to boot. It was a nice holiday.

Rudolph Day, February 2018

"Rudolph Day" is a way of keeping the Christmas spirit alive all year long. You can read a Christmas book, work on a Christmas craft project, listen to Christmas music or watch a Christmas movie.

Valentine's Day has come and gone. This year I had some time to take with dinner, and when James arrived from work, he discovered dinner nearly ready, a card and a gift, and a menu in French. (Let me say I know very little French. Le Menu was courtesy of Le Google Translate. 😁 ) We had lobster ravioli in a butter sauce I cobbled together from ghee, Kerrygold, and Smart Balance, with flavored vinegars and a little sweetener (it, amazingly, came out pretty well) with a cucumber salad. (It was supposed to have tomatoes as well, but I ran out of room in the bowl.) For dessert we had three selections each from a box of dark chocolate only Russell Stover candies. I gave James a book about a fighter pilot and a stand for his cell phone; he gave me Red, White, and Who: The Story of Doctor Who in America, which I dived into like a heated pool and didn't come out until I was finished.

Chocolates were the reason I chose the following book for this month's Rudolph Day reading:

 
Christmas in Belgium by the staff of World Book Encyclopedia
I started collecting these with the resolve that I was going to only pick them up at book sales and was not going to get any of the volumes about Christmas in hot places. But then I couldn't leave Australia out and when you start a collection you want to finish it. So I am trying to assemble the rest of the collection from inexpensive online sources.

I was particularly interested in Belgium because they combine two different cultures, the Dutch-speaking Protestant Flemish in the north and the French-speaking Catholic Walloons in the south (with a substantial German population as well). This is a really nice volume because it talks about how the two cultures enrich each other. Like the Dutch, they still celebrate St. Nicholas Day, like the French they include santons in their Nativity scenes, which, the book tells me, dot the Belgian cities and countrysides. As in all the World Book Christmas volumes, they tell you how Advent, Christmas, and Christmastide is celebrated with food, the growing popularity of Santa Claus and Christmas trees, Advent wreaths, and special cookies called speculoos, which you can buy here in the US as "Biscoff" cookies.

However, there are several unique aspects included as well: there is a piece on the Christmas Truce of 1914 during World War I, the famous lacemakers of Belgium (lace ornaments being popular on trees), Belgian chocolates (said to be the best in the world; Godiva is a Belgian brand), post-Christmas customs like "Lovers Day" and the National Horse Show, and the story of Begijnhofs, small towns of women in the post-Crusade era that supported themselves.

This is an excellent entry in the World Book Christmas series.

Will You Be My Valentine?

A diamond (and the bill for it) is forever? Tennis bracelets? Weekend getaways that cost more than your wedding? Ruth's Christ Steak House?

Let's have some fun and information for Valentine's Day instead.

39 Vintage Valentine's Day Card Fails (there are more than 39)

Single on Valentine's Day? Who Cares?

Celebrating Valentine's Day With a Box of Chocolates

How Chocolates and Valentine's Day Mated for Life

Who Is Cupid?

Vinegar Valentines

Happy Valentine's Day: I Hate You

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day!

Wikipedia on Valentine's Day

One of my favorite legends about Valentine's Day is that it is supposedly the day the birds choose their mates, but here's a twist on that tale!

And, of course, some Valentine quotes.

My Snurgly Valentine

I had a cold over Valentine's Day, so it wasn't the fluffy romantic day that most women might have wanted. I was feeling pretty wretched, to be honest.

When I was feeling better on Friday, however, I got a bee in my bonnet about the game night. I had looked in the stores for old-fashioned Valentine cards like this one.


But everything I saw was media-based. Instead, I noted the little Valentine card kit I bought at Michaels last year. Along with some cute animal stickers, I made handmade cards for each person. I also made a Valentine card for James with an original verse inside. It was fun. I should do projects like this more often.

No pics, sorry. These were little cards, and the stickers were Suzy's Zoo cats and dogs and one bear.

All Hearts

I am finally finished putting up the Valentine decorations. I'd planned to put them up Saturday, but my plans were interrupted, and after that the weather was so sultry it felt like I should be putting up paper umbrellas and glasses of pina coladas rather than Valentine hearts.

I did most of it, including the porch, last night; I like to go out there after dark and decorate, so that next morning when the neighbors go by they blink. "Oh, God, she's done it again." Susan next door does decorate on Hallowe'en and Christmas, and several folks had Christmas lights, but most of the time folks around here are bland as unsalted butter. Aside from different plants in the yard, the other homes are anonymous. I'm glad they're not into pink flamingoes, whirling multicolor pinwheels, bedraggled streamers, and other things I've seen in other yards, but...a wreath on the door? Some potted plants? A stone figure of a dragon or a dog or a small child? Something tasteful that will relieve the monotony?

(I just had to go out and fix the pasteboard hearts; the wind has freshened and blew two of them in the yard. I trust they are more securely fastened now.)

The Most Un-Wonderful Days of the Year

Certainly having to take down the Christmas decorations belongs in this category! Things are proceeding slowly here since work has priority, but last night I divested the front porch of its finery and all the Christmas things in the main bathroom (blue Santas and a blue angel and the blue and purple snowman soap dispenser) are ready to be put away once the soap dispenser has dried. It's still uncommonly warm, which makes it more depressing.

I have $10 in Hallmark rewards cash and am wondering if I should invest in more Valentines Day finery or just save it for Easter or cards. You can only use it on Hallmark-branded merchandise, so I can't buy a Jim Shore piece with it, which I'd rather do. :-)

The Day the Birds Choose Their Mates

And James plots something...I'm not sure what. I've just been told to keep my plate clear tomorrow night. :-)

More Than One St. Valentine

Wikipedia Entry

Who Keeps the Good Saint's Remains?

Valentine's Day History and Customs

Valentine's Day Around the World

Among the more gruesome things having to do with Valentine's Day is the infamous "St. Valentine's Day Massacre" so celebrated in gangster history. Here's a page at Weird and Haunted Chicago that talks about the events and the places.

"Will You Be My Valentine?"

I guess we were pretty typical as mid-60s elementary school kids.

The boys wore their hair short and parted to one side or the other. The occasional cowlick or bowl cut appeared. They wore button-down shirts—often "cowboy shirts" with piping—and pressed troussers (often courderoy in this winter season, or wool). The girls were in dresses, skirts and blouses, or jumpers. Short hair was popular (especially with moms who had to wash that hair), held back with a headband. They wore sturdy Oxfords or Hush Puppies, or strap shoes. A few extroverts whose moms allowed it wore patent leather dress shoes and might have had their hair permed. Ringlets were still popular, too, and hair bows. To stay warm during a long walk to school or at recess, the girls often wore snow pants under their dresses; these came off in the morning along with the thick winter coats and hats and scarves and rubber boots that fit over your shoes and were stowed in the chaos known as the cloakroom behind folding bulletin-board doors.

Valentine’s Day didn’t start immediately after Christmas as it does now. Yuletide was allowed to wind down past the new year before the candy started to appear, but it was only at the tail end of January and into February that schoolchildren started to gear up by surveying what classroom valentines were for sale in the eternal delight of the 60s child, "the five and ten"—Woolworths, Newberrys, McCrory, Ben Franklin, and whatever other local store plied the trade.

The least expensive Valentines, most endorsed by Mom, were just plain little hearts and cupids and other cartoon-like boys and girls or animals wishing each other a happy day or professing love or affection. Girls' Valentines featured dolls, flowers, cute animals, and lots of hearts. Boys' Valentines would more likely have their youthful protagonist in a train engineer's uniform or spacesuit, or would feature trains, cars, airplanes, or construction equipment. Specialty cards, like those with Disney characters or the cartoon heroes of the day like Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound, or theme cards involving real-life race cars or spaceships or television programs were pricier. There was always one, larger Valentine in the box reserved for the teacher; the most common design was some sort of a blackboard with the message written in white "chalk." These were purchased and (sometimes) laboriously signedover and over for twenty to thirty classmates until the day you could dump them in the big box on the teacher’s desk. (Mom always insisted you make out one for everyone in the class, even the kids you didn’t like, so it would be "fair.") In the lower grades, the teacher decorated the box herself, usually with white or pink construction paper. White was favored since then the hearts could be made in both pink and white, and on it in red crayon would be neatly printed the grade and the teacher’s name.

As you grew older the teacher would allow the best artist in the class to decorate the big box. It was an honor to encrust the box with layered hearts or tissue paper flowers, although some students always wanted input on the design.

One February art class closest to the fourteenth was always reserved for making Valentine cards for your mom and dad. Copious piles of white, pink, and red construction paper (sometimes black was added for a cool shadow effect) were plied into service. Sometimes the teacher purchased foil-like cupids or hearts to embellish each card, and lace paper doilies were always a favorite for backgrounds for mothers' cards. Some kids brought in magazine cuttings to further add to the decorative effect. Twenty-five children wielded twenty-five snub-nosed scissors, folding a red sheet in half and carefully reproducing the lopsided teardrop shape with the flat side that would open up into a really-truly heart. The more ambitious children cut odd shapes from the edge and the interior of the folded heart and what unfolded was a confection in "lace" design. These hearts, plain or cut-out, were layered with smaller or larger hearts and then stacked together permanently with the inevitable paste (the flicking paste brush sending bits of white everywhere, including on the clothing and hair of unsuspecting classmates) and cheerfully crayoned with greetings.

We also cut out hearts, again both the plain and lacy variety, to decorate the bulletin board at the back of the room or on the pivoting cloakroom doors, white or red scalloped edges surrounding our best designs.

Later, at home, you would happily hand the now-stiff hand-fashioned card to Mom and/or Dad with a proud "Happy Valentines Day!" and Mom and Dad would admire it and then set it on top of the television console or on the kitchen table, leaned up against the vase of flowers Dad had brought for Mom so everyone could see it. If you were lucky, Dad would take Mom out to dinner and you could come, too, although in most households this was postponed to the Sunday closest to the holiday. Still fresh in your Sunday dress or suit, you'd all troup out to a nice restaurant whene the waiters wore suits and there were cloth napkins instead of paper ones and white tablecloths.

In that Valentine afternoon at school, however, you had received your own haul. The Valentine box was opened and the cards distributed. A few girls shyly smiled at a few boys, and a few boys embarrassedly tucked special Valentines away. There was the constant squeal of a few girls who had received sarcastic comic cards from the few whose moms had not supervised their card purchases and were sticking their tongues out at the guilty, laughing boys. Afterwards, there might be cupcakes and punch or some chocolates Hershey kisses and then it was time to run home and show Mom your cards (after carefully anointing a chosen favorite classmate with that ultimate winter valentine, a snowball!).

"Conjunction Junction, What's Your Function?"

Now joining Conversation Hearts together!

There's also now a "to" as well.

Little Tokens of Love

Valentines Day is upon us again, its world done in colors of pink and red and a touch of lavender and white. Both the site Valentines Day at the History Channel and Story of Valentines Day relate how this "loving" holiday came to be—and no, it wasn't created by Hallmark Cards!

Here are just two Valentine customs from the past:

In Wales wooden love spoons were carved and given as gifts on February 14th. Hearts, keys and keyholes were favourite decorations on the spoons. The decoration meant, "You unlock my heart!"

In the Middle Ages, young men and women drew names from a bowl to see who their valentines would be. They would wear these names on their sleeves for one week. To wear your heart on your sleeve now means that it is easy for other people to know how you are feeling.

The longest-running Valentine tradition (besides a token gift of sweets or some memento) is the Valentines Day card. One hundred years ago, it was considered an special token of your affection if you made your own Valentine cards. Young men and women would spend evenings with a paste pot, red paper, white lace, and the enduring Victorian colored illustrations known as "scraps" to make Valentine cards for their favorite people. But a thriving business existed for "boughten" cards as well. In Victorian times lace-paper Valentines were the preferred missive. In the late Victorian era, a new type of card called a "comic Valentine" was printed. These were printed on cheap paper and featured rude caricatures of people emphasizing extreme body parts (long, warty noses, fat, etc). They were mainly sent by young men who thought the humor was funny and most contemporary publications had some not-so-nice comments to make about comic valentines—they asserted that "good, manly young men" would not think to buy such things.

Here American Greetings presents a History of Valentine Cards.

And here's the story of Esther Howland, "Mother of the American Valentine."

And since sweets and Valentines Day have gone together for more years than anyone can remember, here's a history of one of the most beloved of Valentine candies, Conversation Hearts from NECCO.

Remember Valentine Boxes?

It's funny, I don't. Not individual ones, that is, as narrated in these two stories:

Celebrating Valentine's Day the Old-fashioned Way

Love in a Box

I remember there being a huge box on the teacher's desk. It had a large slot so many of the small, store-bought Valentine cards could be crammed in at one time. After lunch the teacher would open the box and distribute the cards. As they got older, the boys, of course, sent borderline nasty cards (apparently Mom wasn't helping them choose anymore), which really annoyed us girls. We tried within the limit of our budget to get the cutest cards we could, and those "darn boys" just ruined everything. :-)

Creeping Pink

Yes, the Valentine stuff is taking over: JoAnn had hearts scattered everywhere and even has their garden things out. CVS is hung with pink hearts and so is Michael's.

I always tend to slide into depression after Christmas; the pink only makes it worse. I hate pink...