S.W.A.L.K.

At the end of a grubby day emptying the basement, Brodart-covering close to sixty books for the school library, making birdseed pretzels with our two year old, and handling a minor flood emergency with the Department of Public Works after our plumber cracked the mains pipe, I hit the hay. Mostly I thudded into bed grateful to be spared any angst or expectations over the bulk production of Valentine’s cards for pre-school classmates. While other mothers were busily assisting in the glittery creation of thirty personalized love messages for their child to ‘deliver’ at school, I had already put the kabosh on any such notion. Valentine’s Day, I promised my children – Hallmark be damned – is exclusively Cupid’s game.

In the US, Valentine’s Day is fundamentally different. It’s for just about everyone, except perhaps bosses and staff. In the UK, it’s still exclusively the showpiece for amorous love, mutual, unrequited or simply hopeful. Not to mention the eminent domain of really strung out crushes played out by hormonally tormented teens. (Remember the painful, undying pangs of love you felt in high school?) The best part is that Valentine’s Day cards, whether store bought or painstakingly crafted, are sent anonymously, fueling the fires of Valentine love with secrecy and intrigue.

In fact, the hallmark of the day (not Hallmark’s re-interpretation) hinges on this notion of a secret admirer, a throwback to the tradition’s chaste Victorian origins. Whether you know perfectly well who’s behind the heartfelt declaration of love, or are left deciphering fluffy statements of romantic interest – “I think you’re cute!” “I have a crush on you!” -- the cards are left unsigned, save only for a cryptic question mark, a desirous (or less desirably illiterate) “X”, or a pouty lip print to prove it was S.W.A.L.K. (sealed with a loving kiss). Your name may be pieced together out of hastily snipped newspaper letters leaving you to guess whether you now have a serial killer or a lovelorn suitor. Or both.

Envelopes may be written shakily with the sender’s non-writing hand or foot, letting you ponder whether your admirer is a gummy ninety-year-old looking for a nursemaid. Cleverer and cleverer, the romantic games play on. And for those determined to truly snow their love object, the card is then carted off to be posted, no doubt with a good deal of effort, from some random town to really throw them off the scent. After all, having gone to all that trouble, what could be more mortifying than being exposed?

In the states, the lucrative greetings card market has been filling the card aisles with pink and red hues and bubblegum love hearts before the sparkle was off the New Year bubbly. You can buy Valentine’s cards in boxes of twelve or twenty-four like Christmas cards, and most of the shops have had them on sale for half-price for two weeks or more, giving value for money and new meaning to cheap date. Not content with encouraging impressionable progeny to send insincere declarations of love to everyone they know, (even that weird kid who constantly picks his nose and the girl that won’t let my daughter sit next to her at lunch), our children are also supposed to send Valentine’s cards to their parents, siblings, even Nan and Gramps. Worse yet, we’re all supposed to jump onboard and send some back like a postal love scrum.

Unfortunately, if your family is from another country, the chances are they will not be sending love letters to your children. Or so one can only hope. With this conviction firmly in hand, I instead decided we would make Valentine’s crafts with no particular recipient in mind, just for the pleasure of creating and sharing art.

Believing, presumably like some real-life Fancy Nancy, that all things sound better in French, my five year old asked if she might decorate her Valentine craft with French letters. After ten minutes I was able to regain my composure and create curly letters that looked remarkably frothy and French. I am fairly certain the yummy mummies at school would not have been impressed had she turned up with a doily heart beautifully decorated with prophylactics.

Finally, with everyone tucked up in bed and my feet on the stairs ready to turn in, I had a tiny pang of guilt. Two glitter and crayon Valentine’s cards later, I set up a little breakfast table for the children complete with a single red rose and chocolate ladybirds on heart shaped plates. In for a penny, in for a pound: I even signed the cards.