It is a wonderful, but humbling, phenomenon to have older children who start taking over family traditions for a mama. I did manage to read aloud about the real St. Valentine the day before the feast day, but by that night I found myself on the fourth of sixth weeks with my husband absent on business travel and me juggling all the balls and trying to drop none. I was ill prepared for this Catholic feast day when my children eagerly asked me, "So, Mama, when are you going to decorate for St. Valentine's Day tomorrow?!"
Late that night, after I'd tucked in all the kids, I trudged downstairs to figure out how to make something out of nothing when I found this sign on the kitchen door: "Do not come in, Mama! I am making a surprise! Mary."
She dug through all our table treasures, handed down from various grandparents and aunties, used my old birthday flowers from two weeks ago, and made a beautiful table setting! She had even secretly bought gifts for me and her daddy.
I was completely out of all colors of construction paper except black, and I certainly had not managed to purchase greeting cards or holy cards, so I found some creme-colored card stock, cut it into heart shapes, and wrote love notes all around the table. I strew some chocolates around as well. Then I went to our bin of "gifts to give later" (a handy bin to have) and found a beautiful blue candle Chris had bought, which I set out.
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| Gifts from 10-year-old Mary, decorated with pine cones |
And very late at night, Chris was able to fly home from his business trip and not have to stay extra days, as he'd thought was likely. We enjoyed breakfast together as a family before a regular school day.
Happy St. Valentine's Day!
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