Valentines day...

Ahh Valentine's day, a day of lovely velvet boxes, great chocolates and flowers. The day after Valentine's day chocolate lovers will flock to the stores to buy those beautiful boxes at half price!

As a child growing up on the base, we all bought valentines cards for our classmates. They came in a book. Some were large with pictures of Superman..you are a SUPER valentine, they would read (my favourite) some were just small hearts. The night before Valentine's day at home, I would take out all the valentine cards and decide who to give them too. At school, we had time to distribute the cards. I tried to give one to everyone in the class.

My desk was never overflowing with valentines. I got the small ones, the leftovers that you could not decide who to give to. I think I may have gotten one SUPERMAN valentine. It was always a disappointing time.

My mother would buy me a small box of chocolates. I would save the boxes and store treasures in them long after the caramel chocolates were consumed. Gradually I had no more room to store them and the practice died out.

Years later, after I married and moved to Elmvale Acres I decided to change Valentine's day and used my now deceased cat Felix to be a 'secret valentine'. Felix would purchase small boxes of chocolates, not the velvet box but paper boxes with flowers on them and with a small card, deposit them in the mailboxes of the many isolated senior citizens on my street. I never told anyone what Felix was doing and it delighted me to think of the surprise. One woman, Mrs. Noble caught me and could not believe what I was doing.

I no longer look in my mailbox or on my desk for those little cards, and my mother has long ceased getting me small boxes for my treasures. Felix no longer distributes chocolates and it seems that Valentine's day has disappeared into the dreariness of an Ottawa February day.

There is always tomorrow, when I will line up to buy a huge velvet box of truffles at half price!