Gentlemen, in case her subtle hints aren’t enough, it’s already the 14th next week. Keep that in mind the next time you wonder why she has recently started to bring up the trip that never was, or why she makes kwento over and over and over again how sweet her friend’s significant other is—all of which are just bound to get “less subtle” as Tuesday approaches.
With just T-minus six days until V-Day, it’s time to step up your game.
That’s not much time, but it’s still enough to plan ahead and go for something different this year. The best way to start is by ditching the prospect of gifting her chocolate (you can do that on any other day) or, say, sending her her preferred flowers (you already did that last year). Besides, the price of a simple red rose bundle in one Dangwa store has already surged from P250 to P600 as of Monday morning. Two things: that’s already in Dangwa and it was just Monday.
You might argue that in Valentine gift-giving, “it’s the thought that counts” and “nothing beats quality time”. Sure, nothing wrong with that, but you can certainly do better than flowers, chocolates or excuses, right?
Enter last Sunday, when not until the 11th hour did my nephew drop his iPad to finally work on his weekend homework. One of which was to make a scrapbook.
There are a million crafts tagged as “forgotten art”, but scrapbooking is the millionth-and-one. It has suffered the same fate as any activity that involves paper thanks to the digital revolution, but, just as any activity that involves paper, it’s still there and it lives on. Update: there still are scrapbook sections in bookstores.
Some might say scrapbooks are elementary, cheesy, or out of date, but these reasons are actually part and parcel of what makes them work, and why it’s the perfect Valentine gift.
Romantic dinners and set-up surprises work their magic but effort is king during this season of hearts, and nothing reflects better than a handmade book celebrating your relationship’s random moments and memories.
Don’t worry if you don’t cut out the straightest of lines or if you failed art class in school because in this craft, no one loses.
Channel your inner artist and fill the pages with old photos, or the new ones uploaded in your social-media accounts. You could also print out your memorable exchanges in messaging apps and cluster them according to the times she felt grumpy, or when she cracked jokes, or when she felt needy. How about a timeline that illustrates the moments during your courtship, progressing into marriage and eventually to the birth of your children?
If you are a parent, you could even ask your kid to help out and make scrapbooking your quality time, all in the name of mom’s smile.
Forget about the vapid Valentine go-to’s. What’s best about scrapbooks is that they don’t wither like flowers nor expire like chocolates. It lives on.