FriDecor: Valentine's Day! - Passport Diaries

My siblings and I would come downstairs in the predawn darkness of mid-February to find a Valentine’s breakfast spread across the table. A box of chocolates, a valentine, paper hearts and lace scattered across the table, candles. Mama made heart-shaped toast. Thanks, Mum! It took me a while to understood why some friends hated Valentine’s Day so universally. Being in love didn’t seem like a requirement for celebrating love to me. So even now, going out to a crowded restaurant for an overpriced set menu seems all wrong. Tonight we’re having tortellini in the dining room, which is simply but festively decorated in pinks and reds. We’ll have chocolate-covered strawberries for dessert. Hee hee! Happy Valentine’s Day!

I have kimono and obi for ALL OCCASIONS.

There. I put out some red and plum blossoms. It’s Valentinesy.

Here’s what I like: seasons. It has been cold cold cold, so I am thinking about plum blossoms, which are probably blooming a lot of places now—the first signs of spring in the dead of winter! And they smell so good, and are essentially synonymous with Valentine’s Day for me. So is Enoshima Island. Here is my plum blossom Valentine’s Day seasonal display (above).

Pounce likes Valentine’s Day.

January mantle—please note the wooden northern Japanese horse on the right for Lunar New Year

Captain Goodbaby and I have been stuck home with a rotten cold. Now I must be feeling better, because I’ve started rearranging all the crap on the mantle. Chris’ samurai swords have been on the mantle since we moved in, but I draw the line at Christmas. NO SAMURAI SWORDS ON THE MANTLE FOR CHRISTMAS. Instead of reinstating them to their place of honor come January, though, I filled the mantle with books when Chris wasn’t looking. Here’s what I like: books, maps, seashells, anchors, tea. But with Valentine’s stuff on the bar, and a crowd of books on the mantle, and the real issue of a console and the step tansu in the living room too, there’s just too much display space. It looks junky. Then I get sick and Isaac dumps every toy he owns on the floor and we’re drowning. What to do, what to do. The tansu looks blank if it’s empty, but the whole room looks crowded if there’s stuff on too many steps. So I transferred all the blue, plum, gold and white books from the mantle to the step tansu. Now it reads more like a bookcase and less like a curio cabinet. Ahh. A colorful globe on the console brightens and lightens up that dark corner, and now the mantle is blank. It might be time for a Hina Doll display (in anticipation of Girls Day, March 3)!