Posts Tagged ‘tradition’
Love is in the Mail for Valentine’s Day 2009
You’ve heard love is patient; love is kind. This year, love is practical. With the soured economy, the National Retail Federation predicts Americans will spend $20 less on average on Valentine’s Day gifts than last year. And the NRF survey found more will exchange Valentine’s Day greeting cards this year (58 percent) than in 2008.
If you are giving a Valentine’s Day card, consider sending it with a special postmark. Loveland, Colorado’s post office offers a Valentine re-mailing program, a tradition since 1947. First, buy the card in advance so you can mail it out the first week of February. Seal the card in an envelope with your funny Valentine’s address and finish it with a Valentine’s stamp. Now put that envelope into a larger 1st class envelope with the right postage and mail it to:
Postmaster
Attention: Valentines
446 E. 29th St.
Loveland, CO 80537-9998
Loveland’s post office volunteers hand-stamp a love-poem postmark on thousands of Valentines and send them to sweethearts. I treated my wife to this tradition while we were dating, and she still has the envelope. Kudos to author Michael Webb, who introduced me to this idea in his book, The RoMANtics Guide.
Tags: books, greeting cards, surveys, tradition, valentine's day
The ancient Greeks called it xenia — the sacred duty of hospitality — often met with an exchange of gifts. Nearly 3,000 years later, this gift exchange is still alive and well in Excelsior, Minnesota. That’s where my wife and I recently stayed with relatives. On our arrival, my sister-in-law gave us a decorative ceramic spoon designed by Rae Dunn. In the guest room, we found a package of Gemmies, chocolate-coated sunflower seeds in 16 brilliant colors from Gourmet Gems.
In thanks for the hospitality, we brought her family a four-jar set of Ethnic Milwaukee spices from Penzeys Spices, which includes:
- Old World Seasoning (an all-purpose seasoning salt)
- Brady Street Cheese Sprinkle (a garlic-cheese blend for pasta and garlic bread)
- Galena Street Rub (a Southern-style rub for chicken and ribs)
- Fox Point Seasoning (a mix of shallots, chives and scallions for poultry, eggs and vegetables).
We also found gifts for our niece and nephew, but I’ll save that for another post.
Tags: chocolate+candy, food, for guests, for hosts, gift ideas, indulgences, thank you, tradition
Years ago, my mother-in-law joked that she should be the one getting flowers on my wife’s birthday. “After all, I’m the one who birthed her,” she said with a wink. Weeks later, I sent her a dozen roses on my wife’s birthday. The flowers came with note card that read, “Mom – Thanks for birthing her!”
This weekend is my wife’s birthday, and each year, I’ve kept the tradition. I just called my local florist, and my mother-in-law will receive a “winter oasis” of roses, Asiatic lilies and hydrangea (pictured right) on Saturday. Even though I’ve sent flowers each January, it’s still a surprise for her when she receives them. And the note card remains the same: “Mom – Thanks for birthing her!”
Tags: birthday, flowers, for her, for mom, note cards, tradition
It’s Sweetest Day, and my wife and I enjoyed coffee and Godiva chocolate biscuits on the sofa this morning.
Yesterday, I visited the downtown mall for my chocolate shopping, and I had lunch at the food court. While waiting in line for quesadillas, I ran into a co-worker. She was surprised to find me at the mall for lunch. I held up my shopping bag, and I said I was getting a Sweetest Day gift for my wife.
“Oh, my husband doesn’t do Sweetest Day,” she said. “He thinks it’s a commercial holiday.”
I smiled and said, “It’s a Midwestern tradition.”
But her husband does have a point about the commercial nature of Sweetest Day. The holiday came from the early 1920s. Cleveland, Ohio confectioners distributed more than 20,000 boxes of free candy to orphans and shut-ins. The giveaway was part an effort to inspire sweethearts to exchange candy presents and, in turn, boost candy sales.
Hallmark started making Sweetest Day cards in the mid-1960s, and this year has 163 greeting cards to choose from. So it’s easy to chalk up the day as one of those “Hallmark holidays,” invented primarily for commercial purposes.
But you can also choose view the day as another opportunity to express your love. You could give chocolates, flowers or a card. Or you could make an extra effort to show your love: kind words, a few more kisses, a good massage. I think of Sweetest Day as a ritual and a reminder to cherish the one I love.
Tags: chocolate+candy, coffee, for couples, for her, greeting cards, sweetest day, tradition
