< Tevye >You may ask, "How did this tradition get started?" I'll tell you.< /Tevye >
Actually, she may not realize this, but it all started with Miss V. After one particular Valentine's Day, she left a nearly-full box of LEGO Star Wars valentines in the pantry. (Our pantry, for those who have not seen it, is half full of shelf-stable food, a quarter full of china and holiday plates, and a quarter full of craft supplies, 'cause that's how we roll.) I was doing one of my periodic pantry clean-outs (it's past time I did another one, btw) and I came across this little box of grade-school valentines. My first thought, since I was purging the pantry at the time, was to toss it. But the whimsical part of my brain took over, as is its wont, and I thought, "Well, Sooz, Valentine's Day is coming up. You could send these cards out to your family, just for kicks."
Now, I get a lot of these kinds of ideas and then promptly forget all about them. (F'rinstance, I always tell myself I'm going to get out the origami papers and make handmade origami valentines, but it never happens.) This time, however, I got smart and put a reminder on my calendar to look in the pantry around February 1, so my cunning plan actually came to fruition. Since grade-school valentines don't come with their own envelopes any more, I then went through the house looking for singleton envelopes. Between random envelopes I picked up while thrifting, handmade envelopes I folded from old magazine pages, and envelopes I cut out of scrapbook paper, we had a surprising number of these. And so all the LEGO Star Wars valentines (packaged in a whole lot of random envelopes) went out the door.
My family is used to my periodic shenanigans, so they took this project in stride. I'm sure a few of my friends thought I was loony (or at least the more upscale phrase, "eccentric") for doing this. But the way I see it, you're never too old to appreciate a grade-school valentine. Sure it's cheesy, but the cheesier the better, as far as I'm concerned. Besides, it's fun!
And since the rule is "if you repeat it more than twice, it becomes a tradition," I guess sending out cheesy grade-school valentines now counts as a household tradition. At least I'm treating it as such, because a few days after Valentine's Day I went out and bought a couple of boxes of grade-school valentines at a post-holiday deep discount, setting it all up for next year.
Looks like I'll have to make a few more envelopes, though. I'm nearly out.
Oh yeah, and if you think this brand of silliness is right up your alley and you want to be on the mailing list for next Valentine's Day, pop me an email with your mailing address. (My email address can be found here.)
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