Happy Valentine’s Day! Or Single Awareness Day for the pessimistic cynics out there. Go team.
I’ve never spent a single Valentine’s Day in love, so admittedly, I don’t really grasp the lovey-dovey magnitude of this day like so many do. For me, Valentine’s Day seems like a great chance to waste money on chocolates or flowers or ginormous creepy teddy bears.
But I do have some fond memories of today. EpiK Valentine’s Days of old.
When I was a kid, my parents set up yearly scavenger hunts on Valentine’s Day. Don’t ask me where they got this idea or how scavenger hunting even remotely correlates to hearts and cards and ginormous creepy teddy bears.
My two siblings and I would come home from school and be handed our first clue, and then we’d race up and down and across the house for the next hour, hopping from clue-to-clue outside and on every floor. I don’t even remember what was at the end of that hunt.
Candy? Money? Ginormous creepy teddy bears? I have no idea.
But it wasn’t about the gift; it was about the hunt itself.
Lately, I’ve become less and less of a gift-giver. This has been mostly due to limited finances in recent months, but the reason is actually twofold.
I used to think that you proved your love by giving gifts. That sounds cheesy, but it’s true. Christmas, birthdays, you name it; if you love someone, you buy them a DVD on those special days. Or a CD. Or a freaking gift card or something.
But love is indeed more than gifts. And I’ll be honest, I love getting gifts. I don’t mind a new book or better yet a new journal or BETTER YET a Panera gift card (you guys have my address, right?).
Love is more than the gift itself. And yes, that’s cheesy. No, it’s not overly profound, but it is what it is.
Valentine’s Day is all about the scavenger hunt. About racing up and down two flights of stairs to find something that probably won’t matter in a week. Won’t even be remembered in a blog post 15 years later.
But the memory of the thrilling hunt itself — that’ll keep.
What’s your favorite Valentine’s Day memory?
I don’t have any Valentine’s Day memories at all, guess they haven’t been very eventful or celebrated. I do remember my mom setting up scavenger hunts on the Sundays leading up to Christmas when I was little, and they were awesome!
Scavenger hunts at any time of the year are pretty much guaranteed amazing.