Aisles of heart-shaped chocolate, adorable stuffed animals, and bouquets of roses at every store and dozens of couple pictures on social media can make you feel like a freak and totally alone if you’re single on Valentine’s Day. It’s the one day that your singleness is blaring ten times louder than normal.
But February 14 doesn’t have to begin with loneliness and end with a pillow soaked in tears.
Before I was married, Valentine’s Day was a special holiday that we celebrated as a family. We would cook a turkey dinner (yep, the full deal like it was Thanksgiving), give each other candy and homemade valentines, make special heart shaped cookies, and take sibling pictures. Some years, we put together a special, private eating area for our parents and us kids would have at it down in the dining room. One year, we had friends over while our parents went out for dinner, we watched “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” together. Another year, we invited some ladies from our church over for a tea party and luncheon.
While I wasn’t a single adult for long, I do remember feeling sad and left out looking at the all the fun, romantic stuff in stores. I have four older sisters; two are married but didn’t tie the knot until they were in the later twenties. I’m sure they felt lonely and very single some years, but I never knew because they always helped make Valentine’s Day really special for our family.
With so much stuff out there geared toward couples and romance, it can be hard to celebrate when you don’t have a significant other. But you can still have a wonderful holiday making memories with your siblings
P.S. Valentine’s Day is way over romanticized. Pinterest is full of amazingly romantic things a couple can do together and for each other and social media is bursting with pictures of cute couples and their #relationshipgoals. In real life, most guys won’t make you breakfast in bed, buy you flowers, chocolate,and that adorable stuffed animal, create a memory scrapbook to surprise you, give a full massage, dance in the moonlight and watch a chick flick with you (okay, he might do one or two of those things, but not everything). Hollywood, social media, and companies trying to get your money try to make you think that’s what a real romantic relationship looks like. Ignore them, because they couldn’t tell you the first thing about a life-long husband and wife relationship.
While I wasn’t a single adult for long, I do remember feeling sad and left out looking at the all the fun, romantic stuff in stores. I have four older sisters; two are married but didn’t tie the knot until they were in the later twenties. I’m sure they felt lonely and very single some years, but I never knew because they always helped make Valentine’s Day really special for our family.
With so much stuff out there geared toward couples and romance, it can be hard to celebrate when you don’t have a significant other. But you can still have a wonderful holiday making memories with your siblings
P.S. Valentine’s Day is way over romanticized. Pinterest is full of amazingly romantic things a couple can do together and for each other and social media is bursting with pictures of cute couples and their #relationshipgoals. In real life, most guys won’t make you breakfast in bed, buy you flowers, chocolate,and that adorable stuffed animal, create a memory scrapbook to surprise you, give a full massage, dance in the moonlight and watch a chick flick with you (okay, he might do one or two of those things, but not everything). Hollywood, social media, and companies trying to get your money try to make you think that’s what a real romantic relationship looks like. Ignore them, because they couldn’t tell you the first thing about a life-long husband and wife relationship.
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