On Hearts and Flowers – At Sea – [02/13/2012]

Of all the holidays that we celebrate as part of general North American culture, the most sensitive one to tackle while ship-side is Valentine’s Day. Surprising isn’t it? You would think it would be Christmas or something well…religious, where you expect tension.  But as it turns out, that pain you feel when you’re the only one without a sweetheart at the High School Valentine’s Day dance? It doesn’t go away just because you’re well past the “associated” age group.

The holiday is what it is, and there’s not much you can do to change that. As with so many holidays, the card companies have won out on ownership of Valentine’s Day (in fact I’m shocked that those same card companies have not yet latched onto the potential market of Feb 13^th, which is apparently unofficially known as ‘Mistress Day’, a fact I stumbled across while researching material for new onboard trivia sessions – seriously, who knew??), and we all know that everywhere you look in February you’re going to see hearts and flowers and gushing – often overwhelmingly false – expressions of romance. A bouquet of roses costs more than double this month what it will next month or did last month.

At any rate, all of this leaves us in a somewhat difficult position. We can’t ignore the holiday, nor can we change it, but we also can’t make it “all about couples” (which is really challenging because lets face it, as every single in this world knows, Feb 14^th is “all about couples”). We have guests on board who have sadly lost their loved ones, guests on board who are travelling with companions that they are not romantically involved with, and quite a few who are just plain single.

So it is that we end up sitting in the office on Feb 12^th trying desperately to think of some way that we can give out the prizes for the diplomatically named “Hearts and Flowers Ball” taking place tomorrow night, that isn’t about who’s been married the longest, who’s been together the longest etc etc…

Nothing is said about the singles in the crew of course. We do our job and we go home as usual. Tomorrow night I will slide pearls into the curls of my hair and don shimmering smooth red satin with matching sky-high heels, I’ll flirt and I’ll dance and I’ll giggle – and I might just drown my sorrows in champagne for once. Since I, once again, am the girl without a sweetheart. But that’s neither here nor there.

I’ve no doubt that the ball will be lovely, they always are, and this one especially since it marks the last Grand Ball before the BIG Black & Gold Masque at the end of the cruise (which is only two and a half months away I might add) – it just seems that no matter how old you are, or who you are, Valentine’s Day remains a delicate subject….