Two Kinds of Valentine Days

Valentines day for the previous two years has been spent in two very different ways. Last year I had a Valentines Day tea party. Oh what fun that was ! Dressing up, using all my tea cups and pretty china. Making special little sandwiches and desserts and best of all having a room full of friends. We laughed and we ate dainty tid bits and we drank tea, lots of tea. Each of us being as prissy as can be. It was great fun to step back in time a bit to a more refined way of socializing.
The year before that on the 14th of February, we had snow. What a perfect gift for me, since I love snow, everything about snow. I even enjoy shoveling it.
The hush that accompanies snow fall is so holy to me. As though I was walking through a beautiful chapel in the countryside. It seems to me that snow is a mantle of purity laid across the shoulders of nature. Even my foot prints behind me seem to be a form of intrusion into this pristine ground.
Its easy to talk to God about the deepest of heart needs when the land is silent and covered in fresh fallen snow.
This year we have had no snowfall. Its left me feeling a bit cheated. In the picture of Annike looking out of her barn, one can see by the expression on her face that she does not share my love of snow. She stood in the doorway and looked at the snow and decided that laying down in the hay was far more agreeable. She could look out the little kid doorway and not get cold.
As I was writing this, my youngest daughter came home with a dozen white roses for me and a card for my husband and I. I thought about her roses, white and pure like the snow and saw that they were just the gift to tie the past two years to this year. I am indeed a blessed woman.
There is one common thing through all these valentines.
Each February 14th of my married life my husband has given me a beautiful card, perfume, flowers and out for my favorite meal, Pizza !