Valentine’s Day is a time to express your deep love for that special someone in your life. That’s what it’s supposed to be. In reality, it’s an exercise in performance pressure of the worst kind.
If your sentiments aren’t exactly right, if your gift doesn’t reflect your feelings in a truly touching way, you risk taking the Jet of Love down in a truly epic crash & burn.
When you’ve been married as long as I have (30 years plus change), the kind of gifts you get for one another are radically different from the early days. Nowhere is the difference between year 3 and year 30 more pronounced than on Valentine’s Day.
Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE whatever my sweetie gives me because of the thought behind it. But I’ve got to admit that each of the traditional choices has its drawbacks.
Chocolates: Women are usually dieting, so this looks like sabotage. You eat them anyway and then are filled with guilt and self-loathing. Nice present.
Dozen red roses: Costs a fortune, which, if you’re married, is coming out of YOUR pocket as well. Love the sentiment, but hate the big waste of money.
Single red rose: Romantic? Maybe. Cheap? You decide.
Costly jewelry: Hard to see a downside to this one, but the problem is when the costly item is something you would just never wear. After all these years, shouldn’t he know what you like?
Sexy lingerie: Some of us prefer flannel jammies. They keep you warm and cozy and hide the toll the last 30 years have taken on the body.
If it’s tough to pick the right thing for a woman, it’s IMPOSSIBLE to get something for a man. Men don’t usually care about ANY of the traditional stuff. The glaring exception is the lingerie. Even then, it’s hard to get something in his size at Victoria’s Secret.
Nothing says “love” like a bunch of tighty whities.
My hubby is always running short on underwear. This pressing need is expressed in the suggestion that maybe I should do some laundry every once in a while – he seems to expect this every couple of weeks! While white briefs may be something of a necessity in life, they hardly qualify as a romantic Valentine’s Day gift. Or do they?
Here’s the lovely bouquet I crafted for Bill a couple of years ago. It combines romance and practicality with artistic flair. I call it, the Undie Arrangement. FTD, eat your heart out!
How about you? What’s the most unusual gift you ever gave or received for Valentine’s Day?
I’m not just asking out of idle curiosity – this here is a contest, y’all!
Tell me your best/weirdest valentines gift (via comment or email) by this Friday, 1/25 at 12 noon CST and I’ll pick the best. The winner(s) gets… drum roll please… to choose a valentine from my Etsy shop, “peep“. Several options are shown below with more on the site. Choose the one you want and I’ll get it to you in plenty of time for the big event. Sorry, winners have to live in the US of A.
*****WARNING, WARNING**** SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION AHEAD!!!!!
Ditch the same-old, same-old this Valentine’s Day with a creative gift, handcrafted with love from recycled wool or cashmere. Even Fido and Fifi can share the love! Check out my shop, “peep” for lots of fun ideas.
Oh man, the dreaded VD. I wholeheartedly agree with all of the gifts listed and reasons why not above. The hubs persists in getting me a >$100 per bouquet dozen red roses every single year, even if I persist in telling him NOT to. But he never listens to me. Same with the chocolates. Yeah, my big butt REALLY appreciates that, hon. Oh, and I’m totally stealing that undie bouquet idea. I may use socks, though. He’s always missing socks. He needs some new ones.
I guess the best was our first valentines, where I prepared a very romantic basket full of goodies (food and otherwise), which I had a friend actually delivery to his doorstep in the evening after we had returned from dinner. Then we spent the rest of the night making sundaes . . . on each other.
Whoa-ho! Love the sundaes idea.
And I think the sock bouquet would be magical – just make sure they’re not all black socks.
I LOVE the Undie Arrangement! Do you deliver?
Within a 30 mile radius.
In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll admit that this bouquet is a hastily thrown together recreation of the original. That was a full dozen, lovingly arranged. I took a picture of his vase next to my vase of a dozen red roses. But that was one of the pictures lost in the great Computer Debacle of ought-nine.
Interesting undie bouquet!
Feel free to steal the idea.
I like this :> HAHAHA
The only way you could have improved on this gift would be if it had come with a DVD of Michael Jordan basketball highlights….sans Haneswear.
You mean you’d like a video of MJ without his underwear? Oh…Al.
Those damn dangling modifiers get me every time. (Can’t wait to see what you make out of that)
Not gonna touch it. This is a family blog.
Is the Undie Arrangement available at your Etsy shop??
I don’t know how I missed such a great marketing opportunity. Maybe next year.
I wish I still had the picture of the original arrangement – it was really quite elegant.
For real, put that on Pinterest. People will love that!
You should really do an Undie Arrangement at your Etsy Shop – bound to be a winner…maybe get picked up on big TV? It’s hilarious!
(Oh, great post, too…but the undie thing stole the show)
I should get working on my 1/2 hour infomercial – “and if you order in the next 20 minutes, we’ll include a second Undie Arrangement AB-so-LUTE-ly FREE!!!! (just pay separate shipping and handling of $59.98)
You laugh, but this item could really catch on! One born every minute? (and it is cute…with a few touches…)
I’m not laughing…I’m planning!
I just want the dog.
I’ll have to think about this one.
Oops! Sorry…just the tag. You must provide your own cute canine.
Ha! The bouquet of undies is fabulous! That will have to be your picture for the contest on the side – if it’s not already there. Hmmm, guess I best check on that.
I’ve got a story to tell about a valentine’s gift from long, long, long ago…sent from far, far, far away to “please” me.
I wish I had the picture of the actual bouquet. It was side by side with my roses on the dining room table.
Do tell about that valentine’s gift!
Worst Valentines Day present: I got my girlfriend (now wife) a set of jumper cables. Her car was notoriously unreliable, so there was a degree of practicality, but the faces people made when they heard about it were not exactly appreciative of my idea of romance.
On a side note, I gave up on lingerie. Hell, she wouldn’t even wear the jumper cables.
Ha!
I guess you didn’t mess up too badly…she still married you.
I vote for this being a thoughtful gift – sometimes a gal just doesn’t want to wait for her knight to get his horse saddled and gallop 50 miles to where she is stranded – :>) – My best holiday gift was from my Dad – a fully stocked tool box that was stocked with tools I knew how to use….
True, but I would feel better if the gift came with a card saying “call me if you ever need to use these,”
Very true – guess I haven’t traveled back far enough from heartbreak land to remember there are those who would think to add that card! :>) Thanks for the optimistic reminder -
Just to clarify, when you say “recycled wool or cashmere” were the original users sheep and goats?
I actually laughed out loud at this one. Thanks for a good end to my workday, Dave.
I doubt that I’ll win, but I feel better having bared my soul, nonetheless.
It is a more ‘adult’ situation, hint, hint. That would be a writing challenge – to couch the story in scintillating yet appropriate language. For a family themed blog, of course. Tee hee…
Hmmm… I’ll think on that.
Peg, put this on the reply of your reply to my reply….if you can do such a thing. Otherwise, never mind
I don’t know nuthin about movin no comments! Get going on cleaning up the X-rated gift to be G…no, PG would be OK.
There I was, a 1000 miles from home, lonely and forlorn, on a one year contractual job. A kind friend from Chicago sent me a gift right around Valentine’s Day – I can’t exactly confirm the date, mind you, but it was about that time.
Anyway, the gift was totally unexpected – a private revelation, (thank you Jesus!) but a gift that kept on giving and giving and giving. Like the energizer bunny, who did factor into the giving.
We get by with a little help from our friends…(breaks into song)!
That is one of the most memorable Valentine’s Day gifts I can recollect right now.
Ha ha! I wonder what the customs people in Japan thought about that little gift from home? Decadent Americans!
Love the Fruit-of-the Loom arrangement, Peg. Perfect.
My weirdest gift wasn’t all that odd, really. It was just the exact same necklace my husband had given me the previous Christmas that I had put away because it had a delicate chain and I had a 2 year old boy who liked bling. They were both lovely opal necklaces.
Wow! Either he got a 2-for-1 deal, or he really, REALLY liked that necklace. Do you still have it?
Somewhere I have one of them. The second one I was able to return because, well, I already loved the first …
Can I tell you the worst gift I ever received?
Once, I was given a pencil for Valentine’s day. To be fair, it had hearts on it. My (former) boyfriend gave it to me while we went out for dinner. (I bought him two slices pizza and a coke.) He reached into his coat pocket and handed me the pencil and said: “Happy day, babe.”
I wanted to poke him in the eye with it.
I stayed with the cheapskate for two years after that. Can you imagine?
A pencil’s not so bad…if you’re in kindergarten. If you were going out to dinner I assume you were a little older so, yeah. Cheapskate. He must have had TONS of other admirable qualities to hold onto you for so long.
Hmmmm a bouquet of y fronts is any man’s dream gift
That’s what I thought. Guys don’t care about all that other stuff, do they?
When I was married, February was dubbed New Underwear Month. We both splurged and got new stuff. Maybe not so romantic, but certainly a boost in that mid-winter slump.
Especially if you model them for one another…
I bought my man a pair of undies last Valentine’s day too! They were of the practical type, but in a good designer brand that came in a nice package (cue smutty joke), so it looked like a nice gift, but it was also meant to be a bit of a joke because he keeps wearing his until they are threadbare! (I do hope he doesn’t mind me publicly speaking about his undies…).
I know I can’t win your prize as I’m not in the USA, so I’m just commenting for the sake of joining in!
Jeez, what’s with all the underwear? I thought I was alone in this. And don’t worry. Next time I see your man I won’t ask him about his undies.
Sorry, everyone, but I’ve GOT THIS. (And the Undie Arrangement is amazing, by the way.)
Warning: This is PG-13 and totally TMI.
For Valentine’s Day many years ago, Peppermeister gave me what he called “chorn” – an ‘adult’ DVD with chocolate bars taped to it.
These days, I go for the classier stuff. Like 50 Shades of Bacon-chocolate.
Whoa, baby! Talk about hitting ALL the right buttons! I’ve always said Peppermeister is a very clever fellow.
bwah ha haaa! Oh, my!
A few years back, I got my girlfriend some very nice jewelry for Valentines Day. Her gift to me? A dolly/handcart with inflated wheels, perfect for hauling my musical equipment around. I’m sure that she pawned the jewelry long ago, while I still use that darned dolly. She wasn’t terribly romantic, but very practical to be sure… This year, I’ll probably watch WIll and Faith for a few hours so that she can shop/watch a movie by herself for awhile. If that isn’t foreplay, I don’t know what is?!?!?!!?!
I think you’re on to something with that gift idea. Throw in some flowers and chocolates for good measure, though, hmmm?
I despise Hallmark Day. Might have something to do with my name, which is a family name thus I have been stuck with it.
I love your gift idea! Love it.
Unique gift? I once decided there would be no gifts, no cards, no nothing. We would simply go shopping with a budget of $200 and buy something we wanted. We shopped all day and couldn’t find a thing we could agree on, nothing we wanted jointly. Nothing we thought we could live without. At the end of the day he got $100 and I got $100. The next day he went a played golf and a course he really wanted to play. I deposited my money.
That’s a great idea! That way you each get what you want. I must admit that it’s tempting to use these occasions as a litmus test. Does he know me? Does he love me ENOUGH? Will he pass muster? Disgraceful.
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You can make realy nice bouquets out of Zanax Zoloft and Zyrtec, too.
Or a necklace. Then everyone is happy and have clear sinuses.all night long
Now THAT is something I’d like to see in production! Happy necklaces.
I totally shot myself in the foot with Valentines day, anniversary etc.
Used all my best material early.
Which will make this one the saddest / lamest ever.
Until next year.
Depending on how long you’ve been together, you might be able to get away with rerunning the good, early material. That TV-land channel does it all the time!
Do your talents ever end, Pegs? The bouquet of undies (or lollipop undies?) is divine!
Most off-the charts gift I gave for Valentine’s Day: a 15-pound heart-shaped meatloaf slathered in ketchup cooked with genuine love from me to my newly-wedded husband who had been eating my meatloaf for four months. He wasn’t impressed. I still refer to it as the St. Valentine’s Day Meatloaf Massacre.
Ha ha! Nothing says loving like a good meatloaf.
Love your blog! I only started reading today, and I’m having a BLAST!
The most odd gift I gave for THE DAY was a job. Hubs had been out of work for 5 months. Our son was 4 months old. And the last job still owed us five figures (they never paid up). I went downtown for a couple of hours and walked around looking for a job. I got an offer to deliver flowers for the holiday. They were desperate enough, they asked both me and hubby to work.
That was on the holiday. Turns out, they offered me a full-time job, as well! My first official day, one of my deliveries was to a woman whose husband was also looking for employees… with my husband’s talent set! That was four years ago, and we are still with that employer (although two kids later, I don’t work for the flower shop anymore).
I don’t know if that is the coolest Valentine Present, but it sure was wonderful how God laid out all the steps for us. And it only occurred because of Valentines’ day!
What a wonderful story! God truly does work in mysterious ways.
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