It's almost here. Every year I see the date looming on my calendar and my blood sugar spikes in terror.

Valentines Day. It's one of those holidays that used to be so simple. You take your significant other out for a meal, provide a sentimental card and voila! A successful holiday experience executed with a minimal amount of planning and stress.

But Valentines Day takes on a whole different level of complexity when small children are involved. Because small children must love everyone in their class. I don't disapprove of this rule; frankly I'd live in terror of my child being the one that didn't score enough Valentines to keep her off a therapist's couch in March. Really, the whole holiday wouldn't be so bad if I would be content to buy a box of Valentines, address them and be done with it.

No, no. That seems so pragmatic. No, at our house Valentines is a Craft Opportunity. And I absolutely adore Craft Opportunities. When I discovered I was pregnant I imagined all the clever handmade things I would create with my child. Now, eight years into parenting, we own enough craft supplies to paper machŽ a small third world country.

Despite my passion for crafts, I should note that I have no skill whatsoever when it comes to the actual execution of craft projects themselves. So far this fact has not deterred me in the least.

Of all the holidays, Valentines Day is the penultimate of craft holidays. If you type in "valentine craft" on the Internet you will come up with 5,660,000 results in .08 seconds.

Imagine if we gave them a few minutes to really look around.

Half of the craft projects will use the phrase "quick and easy" and then go on to list 18 steps for construction. I can only assume the "slow and difficult" ones come with a manual and instructional DVD.

Personally, I'm always drawn to the ones that require a Ph.D. in Thermodynamics. Flight-worthy airplanes made from Smarties, sticks of gum and Lifesavers. Woven cards with alternating colored ribbon that spell out each child's name. In Swahili.

Fortunately for all involved I back away from those projects (even though in this era of competitive motherhood, I know I'll see at least one of those in my daughter's bag) and we usually stick to something that merely requires a bachelors degree and some glitter.

Last year between both daughters we had to prepare fifty homemade Valentines and by the end of the process we were not in love with ANYBODY, effectively canceling the entire point of Valentines Day altogether.

So I'm considering the simple route this year. I found a box of old Valentines where all I have to do is affix a chocolate kiss in a pre-punched hole. Done in 15 minutes.

Then I'll have time to work into each some lace, maybe a few pink foam hearts, and tiny origami swans constructed from stripped gum wrappers. Glitter anyone?

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