On my first Valentine’s Day as a married woman, my spouse and I went out and bought a tomato red canister vacuum from Sears. Money was tight. We needed a vacuum because we had wall to wall shag carpeting in our apartment. I think it was gold – which means it was old even back then and had endured the footsteps of many previous tenants.

Romantic? Heck no! Practical? Deadly so. I look back on that decision and realize we did the right thing, but we should have done more on our first Valentine’s Day. It didn’t have to mean spending more money because we didn’t have it to spend.

A candlelight dinner of Campbell’s soup and grilled cheese sandwiches with a scoop of ice cream for dessert is romantic when you’re in your early 20’s fresh from eloping and moving halfway across the country. A homemade Valentine expressing undying love would have been cute and something to remember about the passion of youth. Instead, we made the horrendous decision to be mature.

I never wanted a room full of roses or fancy jewelry, but I did want something more in the years to come than a hastily signed drug store valentine handed to me in the paper/plastic sack a cashier had put it in minutes earlier. I also wanted more than the obligatory perusal of the gift I’d carefully selected.

Valentine’s Day shouldn’t be about being practical and acting like a grown up. It shouldn’t be about giving the most expensive over the top gift and it certainly shouldn’t be a platform for bashing consumerism.

Valentine’s Day should be about expressing our love for another human being.

How can you be romantic?

Honestly, it depends on your partner and the type of relationship you have.

Some people aren’t sentimental and they may never appreciate a romantic gift or gesture. It doesn’t necessarily make them a bad person, but it does mean you’ll be disappointed year after year if you expect them to change. Try to focus on the positives and complete this sentence:

They might not think Valentine’s Day is important, but they show me I’m important by__________________________________________________________________________.

Fill in the blank as many times as you can then turn the question around. It’s equally important to make sure we are appreciating our loved one and making them feel loved and valued.

I think Valentine’s Day is important, but I also show them how important they are by___________________________________________________________________________.

Hopefully it will give you some perspective.

Over the years I’ve collected stories from friends and acquaintances about Valentine’s Day celebrations. All of my favorites are romantic and inexpensive.

Here are a couple of my favorites:

We’d both just started new jobs, so we didn’t have a lot of money to spend for Valentine’s Day. We decided to decorate shoe boxes and send each other a pack of Valentines like the ones we used to get in school. We cut out hearts and flower shapes from scraps of wrapping paper and decorated our boxes. E each went to the drug store and grabbed a pack of Valentines. He chose Disney characters and I picked Ninja Turtles. We grabbed a pack of conversation hearts to split. On Valentine’s Day we opened our boxes. He’d written some corny puns on a few like, “Roses are red. Violets are blue. I need a Valentine and I pick you.” On others, he’d written something risqué or a love poem. There were 25 in all and every one was different. Some had hearts enclosed in the envelopes though he confessed he’d eaten most of his share while writing out the Valentines. I knew right then and there that this Valentine’s Day could never be topped. Though our salad days are over and we can afford to splurge a little, each Valentine’s Day we leave a little white envelope on each other’s pillows with a little Valentine and the words, “Roses are red. Violets are blue. I need a Valentine and I pick you.”

On our first Valentine’s Day, I didn’t know what to expect. My husband is kind of quiet and doesn’t go in for mushy cards or romantic movies. He made me a wooden box. The lid was with attached with brass hinges. He’d sanded it and covered it with clear stain, so the beautiful wood grain showed through. Inside he’d enclosed an envelope dated and addressed to me. It was the first love letter I ever received from him and every year he adds another love letter to the box.

 On our first Valentine’s Day together, I baked my husband a batch of chocolate chip cookies and I put them in a heart-shaped tin from the Dollar Store. He bought me a bag of fresh ground chocolate truffle coffee tied up with pink, white and red ribbons. He couldn’t tie fancy bows, so he curled the ends of the ribbons. I love coffee. He loves chocolate chip cookies. Every year, no matter what else we do, I bake him his cookies and put them in that same tin and he gives me my chocolate truffle coffee and curls the pink, white and red ribbons.