Happy Valentine's Day! Happy Birthday!

My husband always says that his birthday is the WORST! He's always had to buy someone else a present for HIS birthday. He's always had to plan some elaborate dinner or event for someone else on HIS birthday. He's always had to order flowers and have them delivered to someone else on HIS birthday... by those points, I'd have to agree... sharing your birthday with Valentine's day has got toe be absolutely NO FUN... especially for a guy!

Lucky for him, I'm not a Valentine's girl... Don't get me wrong, I think it's great to celebrate love and I adore decorating our home (and myself) with lots of red and pink and hearts and glitter... shocking I know... but when it comes to this day, that's all I want. I don't want him to spend $70 on flowers for 1 day when for-no-reason flowers are so much better. I don't want him to buy me chocolate... then I would be compelled to eat it and promptly complain that I now need to run it off, and I really don't want to... and I need more jewelry like I need a hole in my head... but if he asks, I really do love diamonds :)

Mostly, I just love having an excuse to make a reservation at a fancy restaurant and go out and spend a much-deserved night out on the town with the love of my life. We drink pretty cocktails and over-indulge in everything then practically roll home.

So I usually start looking for great new restaurants in Philadelphia in December and make about 15 reservations on Open Table and then give Jay a choice. Sometimes, he wants to try a specific spot... other years he wants to be surprised. Last year was probably our favorite. Stateside had an AMAZING Prix fix menu for Valentine's day (we usually aren't fans of not having a choice but this worked out) and an even greater whiskey and bourbon selection which totally made Jay's night.

Tonight we're headed to Barclay Prime!

So Happy Birthday to the love of my life! I am so happy I get to spend the rest of my life celebrating the man I love on the day of love :)

Non-Valentine's Day

I first have to start out by wishing my beautiful sister a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY!  She was my first friend and the reason that I love to celebrate this day so much! We never had to worry about being alone on the day of love because we always got to spend it together doing fun things to celebrate our love as sisters and with our family.

Growing up, my mom never missed an opportunity to decorate for holidays and would DECK OUT our house in all things festive for the entire month leading up to them. She would bake goodies for us to match the holidays and always made sure that we had time to celebrate as a family. It was so fun making crafts and goodies to commemorate the seasons.

As we got older, there was undue pressure on us to find boyfriends to celebrate our "love" with (and you know... in high school when your boyfriend would conveniently break up with you so he didn't have to buy you anything for Valentine's day... so you were alone anyway). We never had that, it was always just her birthday and a reason to decorate with hearts galore! We would go watch chick flicks or shop or get dinner... anything to make it about her special day and not about Valentine's day and I cherish every memory we share from these days!

So, since tomorrow is your birthday, I wanted to be the first to say (as it was so eloquently put at your 16th birthday surprise party)...

 SHIEEEEEEELA! Happy Beeeeeeee-Day!!!! 

(in my most high-pitched and flamboyant voice possible)