Writer’s Workshop Prompt 5.) Valentine’s Day is coming…share a favorite Valentine’s tradition.
My husband’s Valentine’s Day tradition is simple. On Valentine’s Day, Ed always comes home from work late.
On Valentine’s Day, we rarely go out. Very often, it’s a week night. Neither one of us remembers to make reservations in advance, and then we’d also have to find a babysitter. So I usually try to make pot roast, a dinner Ed loves.
One February, I bought a beautiful beef roast for Valentine’s Day, and then I received a phone call. It was one of those phone calls you dread. My grandpa had fallen, and my cousin thought we should travel to Iowa to see him. I threw that gorgeous piece of meat into the freezer, packed my bags, and spent the week, including Valentine’s Day, with my family.
I was grateful I went, because I was able to be with my grandpa on the day he died. He had loved a long and wonderful 96 years.
Ed joined me in Iowa for the funeral. When we returned home, there was a puddle of meat juice on the kitchen floor. Our refrigerator had kicked the bucket and that was the end of the pot roast.
For our first Valentine’s Day together as a married couple, I handmade a sentimental card for Ed by printing some special emails we sent to each other. I included the emails we sent when I first asked him out, and the emails we sent to each other the day after we were engaged. I made a cute little booklet with hearts and a photo of the two of us, and presented it to Ed on Valentine’s Day.
After eight years of marriage and two kids, I rarely remember to buy Ed a card. So I traipse up to my card box, look at the cards I’ve saved from previous years, and re-give Ed one of those cards. He never notices. The key is to never write the year on the card.
I rarely receive a Valentine’s Day card from Ed. Instead, he’ll stop off at the Jewel after work to buy me some flowers. That’s why he’s always late on Valentine’s Day, because he stops at the grocery store to buy me some flowers.
That’s good enough for me.
What do you love about Valentine’s Day?
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