May I Introduce...The V-Day Ghost and her Goblins

I love, LOVE Valentine's Day. With the exception of Christmas, it is my favorite holiday. There is just something about the idea of a day set aside, simply to celebrate love. There is no other day of the year when you can see a boy leading a blindfolded girl through a hotel lobby and think, "Oh, how sweet!" When this day arrives, I feel like I suddenly have license to be as blatant with my affection as I want to be. When you pair my love for the day, with my love for surprises, the product is what I like to call the V-Day Ghost.

The ghost originated in February of 2003, when I was engaged to a medical student who had HUGE tests on Valentines day. Refusing to allow my only V-Day as an engaged girl to be wasted, I skipped all my classes, drove to Birmingham and left a series of elaborate signs, embarrassing gifts, and baked goods all along this poor, unsuspecting medical student's trail. On the front porch when he left the house, outside his testing room, on his car....EVERYWHERE he went he was showered with (embarrassing) signs of my ardent affection. I remember Whitney saying, "It's a good thing you've already got that ring, because if this had happened before you caught him, he would definitely be running away as fast as he could!"

So, every year as the big day approaches, I start to scheme and Jeremiah starts to worry. Every year he warns me of things that really are NOT appropriate, and the biggest area he's been afraid that the ghost would strike, is the operating room. Guess where I got him this year?!! I talked to an OR nurse that's a good friend of his, and I gave her a CD of Jeremiah singing a very beautiful, but very lovey love-song that he wrote. He was standing at the table, cutting away when he heard himself come blaring over the speakers. OH, I wish I could have seen his face! The staff wouldn't turn it off and they listened to a few more songs on his CD, before they finally sucummbed to his pleadings for mercy.

I also got the help of my little goblins, and we shoe-polished his car and wrapped pink and white streamers around it. I don't know if you can tell in the picture above, but there is a very strict dress code for a Valentine's ghost, and the goblins, on V-Day. Only shades of pink, purple and red are allowed, and the crazier the better. My pants are actually purple below that crazy sweater and pink turtle-neck. Pace is wearing a red Valentines jumper, paired with a pink bow, red galoshes, and some fancy beads we bought just for the occasion. Poor Mary Aplin never got out of her pink striped PJs in the craziness of the day, and she is rocking that red shawl if I do say so myself.

Pace and I baked heart-shaped cream cheese and chocolate brownies to deliver to her friends across the street. Natalie and Caroline were also embracing the Valentines spirit in some very sassy, heart-covered pants. No, Mary Aplin did not fall off the swing, but it was close.

Finally, Jeremiah had some surprises of his own on our big love day. I got home around midnight on Valentine's Eve, and I walked in the door to find our dining room table decorated with rosebuds and camelias from our own yard. He had laid a red tablecloth, brought out our crystal, bought pink toile plates with red silverware, placed candles in a sweet circle within the flowers, strapped heart-shaped balloons to our chairs and stocked the refrigerator with everything needed for a steak dinner for two. While he didn't get home from a long day in the OR until around 8, we were able to sit down to a quiet meal, with both of our little goblins tucked soundly in their beds, and talk about the fun of loving each other.