valentine tradition

Well, you might notice that the title of this post is "valentine tradition," singular,  not "valentine traditions" plural.  That is because i've never really been huge on this particular holiday.  I've been a little on the fence about it. My biggest dilemma has always been between "this is a useless, commercially created holiday meant to make me spend too much money on cards, and why can't we celebrate love the other 364 days a year? " cynicism and "what a wonderful opportunity to make people feel loved and appreciated?"  The former, if i'm honest, was usually a cover for not wanting to feel like the only person without a bouquet of overpriced flowers, and the latter came from more of a love for baking unnecessarily challenging treats. Oh, and my intentions were always much greater than anything i actually gave to anyone on this hallmark of holidays.  Anyway, back to the tradition. Here it is. . . (pardon the technical difficulties, i couldn't figure out how to take this picture so you could actually read the heart. It says "sweet fart")

 A lot of years ago my brother and i were at a forced family supper in the purnell house and mom had decorated using all these giant sweetheart candies with sweet little messages on them.  To this day i can't remember who started it, but sam and i started turning messages of love, affection and flirtatiousness into messages of pain, disgust and general dislike for the recipient.  Every year i look for these hearts, and 2 out of 5 years i get an envelope of them in the mail.  I accidentally left a few out this year, including this example where i turned "sweet heart" into "sweet fart".  some of my favorites included 

-"marry me" into "you'll never marry"

-"be mine" into "be dead"

-"your face" into "your face looks like vomit"

- "sweetie pie" into "doo doo pie"

  It's my way of letting him know that i love him. Oh, and for those of you not aware, he did marry. December 15th. i'm really behind on my posting.