Ah, Valentine's Day.
When I started this blog, just five years ago, I always felt like it was so weird to talk about how Valentine's Day was my second-favorite holiday.
Honestly, I felt like it was a strange thing to say in general, as I had for most of my life.
I was never the romantic type. I wasn't a little girl who dreamed of my wedding day or anything like that...I honestly didn't even tend to get crushes all that often. The other girls thought it was weird or that I was hiding something when they'd ask the age-old question, "Who do you like?" and I never had an answer.
Yet somehow, I was also the little girl whose heart leapt when the pink-and-red explosion of Valentine's Day started making its way into the world. The Cupid silhouettes, the punny cards, and especially the little anthropomorphic heart people, all held a special place in my heart, only rivaled by the space permanently occupied by the pumpkins and ghosts and skeletons of Halloween. I could never explain it. I still can't.
But I definitely don't think it's all that weird anymore.
I've spoken every year since I've had this blog about the creepiness of certain vintage valentines. A great many of them feature ghosts and skeletons, and could honestly be confused for Halloween cards if you don't know what you're looking at.
And some were just downright creepy without even trying to be.
There seems to be a recurring theme of veiled threats in some vintage valentines that's not unlike a note a killer in a horror film would leave.
And, while a lot of this stuff would never fly these days, I think it's safe to say that Valentine's Day has become connected to spookiness once again.
It started with those "let's get rid of Valentine's Day and replace it with second Halloween" memes. I hated those memes and eventually had to make a couple of posts on social media asking well-meaning friends to please stop sending them to me as, yes, weird as it sounds, I actually have no desire to replace Valentine's Day.
(Halloween in February would never work, anyway.)
Over time, though, rather than replacing Valentine's Day, Halloween has very clearly begun to merge with it.
I can't even tell you how happy it makes me feel to find spooky things in the Valentine's Day section of stores like Walmart and Walgreens nowadays. Ghosts and skeletons are now a part of the celebration once again, along with horror merchandise of all kinds.
A haul of mine from earlier in the season. Not all spooky, I know, but I do enjoy Valentine's decor of all kinds.
There has also been a trend started of spooky yet romantic, or romance-adjacent, movies coming out around this time. Last year brought us the super-fun Lisa Frankenstein, which I've come to think of as the quintessential Valloween film, and this year brings us Heart Eyes, along with Companion, which I think also counts. Seeing so many things being specifically aimed at the spooky community this time of year, truly makes my heart soar, and makes me feel like maybe my weird obsession with Valentine's Day, was never truly all that weird after all. It seems as if there's always been a connection between the spooky and the cute...and it seems to have started out even spookier!
Whatever your plans are for the holiday, stay spooky, my friends!
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