The (Un)Celebrated Day of Love

My husband and I don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day. I know: this is equal to heresy in our commercialized world.

I don’t remember ever having observed the Day of Love, which is not to say that we don’t value romance. To the contrary! We make it a point to take time out for romance all year round. Each and every week, you can find us at our house, lingering over a fancy candlelit dinner, with Frank or Tony crooning in the background, the two of us engaged in spirited discussion about anything and everything or just gazing into each other’s eyes (yes, we do this even with a baby!).

We’ve come to expect these evenings, just as we expect that Mondays follow Sundays. We look forward to them with anticipation; they are an important part of our marriage. Ten and a half years of romantic dinners twice a week on average look something like this numerically: 10.5x(52x2)=1092. In reality, we’ve enjoyed over a thousand romantic evenings, many of them uniquely memorable.

Like the time when I surprised Ron with a four-course meal on the dawn of his birthday upon getting home from work at 4 AM. Or when we grilled steak and lobster outside at midnight one freezing January night. Or when we hiked to our destination, carrying our al fresco dinner (with wine!) in a picnic basket, so we could enjoy a crisp fall day by the river. Or when we celebrated Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year with a traditional meal. There have been countless nights when we sat on our back deck watching fireflies light up the sky, bats fly overhead, pointing out constellations and observing the moon wax and wane. I could talk about the night we sat and marveled at the new life we’ve created. Or the night we had our deepest discussion yet on the nature of God.

So you see, we really have no need for Valentine’s Day. It will remain uncelebrated by us yet again this year.

(Unless the fancy strikes us at the stroke of midnight and we decide to fire up the grill and pop open that nice Shiraz.)