Is it just another Hallmark Holiday??

VD is coming.

You know what I'm talking about.

How do you keep it fresh?

How to you combine romantic and practical?

How do you make the littles happy without creating gimme-gift kids?

Flowers. Hot used to sent me lots of flowers. I loved them, but, as Elle has always said, "I prefer them with the roots on...." A flat of pansies is more my style. We've found our balance..... the Costco flower department. I get flowers. He gets style points. Our budget stays in line and no more useless vases collecting in the laundry room.

Cards. Let me go on the record as stating I think cards are the dumbest thing in the world. Just throw away a couple of bucks or, better yet, buy me a bag of m&m's with that money. BUT. Hot likes cards. Hot's family does cards for everything. So I suck it up. I get simple cards at the dollar store and try to use plain cards with a photo stuck on them when I can..... and when I have to do it I visit the card row at my local Target.

Candy. Bring it on. This year I got the kids each a big-sized Hershey's bar. Each. And I won't nag or make them save it. Does that say "I love you" or what? It will be FUN. I might also hit the 2-day sale at CVS tonight for a couple of bags of holiday kisses. We love kisses at our house. And they are 2/$3. Confession time: I DO buy red-silver-green bags on clearance after Christmas and then put the red-silver ones in the sweets jar for Valentine's. Then the green ones go in for St Patrick's day. Seriously. Don't YOU do that?

Gifts. I try not to commercialize my love. Try being the key word there. This year I got a good deal on an mp3 player ($40 for a 1000 song one at Shopko). So that's what I got for Hot. Let's just skip over the part where he was trying to help me clean the pile off the counter on Saturday and found the bag. And proceeded to read all about it while I squealed at him from the living room. The kids are each getting a little white piggy bank ($1.99 from Ben Franklin) to live on the cabinet by the phone for their "lowances" and "special monies." Last weekend it was dog poo. This weekend Sweet swept the garage and broke down all the recycling boxes. Tuff used the stroller to haul things from the back of the garage to the front and pile them there for me. Sweet is getting the Diego Leapster game (that was supposed to be his Christmas present but we ended up with too much stuff so I saved it) and Tuff is getting some lip gloss and a princess wand set (Target clearance). Is it too much? Probably.

Friends. We haven't had to do valentine's for classmates yet. I dread the day.

Food. Lasagna is the usual tradition at our house. Although last year it was steak. No dinner out. That's a nightmare. I like lasagna, salad, wine, cheesecake & peppermint tea.

Past VD Posts: ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR