Zoe's Tips for Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is on its way, Friends!

Hiya, Friends!  Hey. Didja know that Valentine's Day is right around the corner?  I mean, it's two weeks away! 

Are you ready?  Have ya made your fancy Valentine's Day mailbox so your coworkers know where to put their Valentines to you? 

If not, you can always tape a paper bag with a heart-shaped doily on it to your desk.  I mean, that'd be the conservative approach to a Valentine's Day mailbox.  That'd be the no muss, no fuss way to get your Valentine's Day Mailbox out of the way and put out so people can start fillin' it.

Me?  I think we all oughtta make a SPLASH with our Valentine boxes, Friends!  You know I'm gonna!  I mean, look at my outfit today, Friends!  Would a girl who wears zebra print and a proliferation of pink tulle really be happy puttin' a doily-decorated paper lunch bag on her desk to collect all the Valentines she's gonna get?

Do ya have a cool mailbox all lined up in which to collect your cards?

No!  Silly grownups!  Of COURSE a kid like me wouldn't be happy with that arrangement!  And neither should you Big People be!  Hey, you know what?  Check your phone.  Check your phone right now, because your little kid self is calling you to say "Big Person that is the future version of past me: do not phone in our Valentine's Day mailbox by taping a doily to a lunch bag and taping the lunch bag to our desk!  We can do better than that!  We can do better!"

I mean, in this day and age with the Pinterest and the Internets, there's no excuse to have a lame Valentine Collector.  There's no excuse for it!  Take down that silly paper bag right now, put in a votive candle, and make a luminaria out of it.  Create a little ambiance!

Your Valentines mailbox should be a representation of your personality!

In my department, neato Valentine Card Collector boxes have started popping up all over the place.  My friend Sabretooth made his to look just like a Zamboni.  He used a coupla boxes and cobbled and taped them together, then put freezer paper over the whole works and used stickers and paint to make his box look like a Zamboni.  And then he cut a slot in the top so that people can put in their Valentines!

My friend Sophie La Giraffe made a Valentine Mailbox that looks like a little pink house, and to put in your card, you open the front door!  How about that?!  Pinki the Little Giraffe brought in a real mailbox, approved by the Postmaster General, even, and it's painted with all sortsa heart-inspired designs.  Pinki painted it herself, with a paintbrush held in her teeth!

It's so inspiring, what my friends can come up with, Big People. And it makes this time of year so much more fun, when you're walkin' through the department and ya see all these great mailboxes!

On the other hand, the Executives participate in Valentine's Day, too, and their suites aren't very sweet.  Guess who went to the dang ol' Sams Club and picked up a hundred-pack of paper lunch bags, and also a hundred-pack of red heart doilies and a sizeable rolla Magic Tape:  It was the executives!

And they say imagination is dead.

Don't sweat the Valentines, Friends!  I have ideas for you!

Anyway, now that I've gotchyoo thinkin' about building your own mailbox, I wanna talk to you about filling up the mailboxes on your friends' and coworkers' desks.  Now, you can get the good ol' classic Valentines that your favorite store sells this time of year.  You can do that, especially if you're pressed for time, and you have a lot of friends and coworkers.  I've got me a package of storebought Valentines, myself.  My company has a policy in place that to prevent super-hurt feelings on Valentine's Day, everybody gives everybody a Valentine.  It doesn't hafta be fancy.  Just a little note in the ol' mailbox, because it would really hurt to bring in a buncha Valentines for everybody else, and then get back to your desk and the mailbox you put some time into decorating really nice, only to find that nobody put any Valentines in it for you.  So I agree with the Executives on this one.  And I use my store-bought Valentines cards on the people I don't know very well or particularly like, and then I add a little note on the back, to make it personal.  I mean, it's Valentine's Day and the mascot is a heart, for Pete's Aches, so I like to make an extra-special effort to find something nice to say about everybody on the Valentine card I give 'em.

Who knows?  It could change their outlook for the rest of the year?

But for my good friends, and my coworkers I really have a lotta fun with, I like to give 'em something special on Valentine's Day.  But nothing weird.  I mean, you know?  You don't wanna turn Valentine's Day at the office into a Day of Weirdness, do you?  I sure as heck don't wanna!

So instead of giving out real hugs and kisses, I like to make up goodie bags with Hershey's chocolate Hugs and Kisses, and put a tag on that says "Hugs and Kisses from Your Pal Zoe!"  Isn't that clever?

Or if chocolate isn't really your thing or the thing of your friends and co-workers, you could throw together a little goodie bag with little bottles of hand sanitizer, some Emergen-C or Airborne, and a little pack of Kleenexes, with a tag that says "Sharing is caring on Valentine's Day.  Except germs.  Don't share germs.  Use hand sanitizer!  Love, Your Pal Zoe!"  Or whatever your name is.  Don't sign 'Zoe' on things if your name isn't Zoe.  People will get the wrong idea about both of us!

You wanna know what I'm gonna do for my List At Large this year, Friends?  I had a buncha little Valentine's cards made up with Justin Bieber's picture on the front, and then on the back, they say 'Just a note from me to letchya know how pleased I am this Valentine's Day that you are NOT this guy!'  and considering I ordered fifty of those cards, I'm glad there aren't fifty Justin Biebers running around everywhere. 

Also, you can't go wrong with humor.  You just cannot, Friends!  Make your Valentines laugh with a punny joke, or a delightful riddle!

Keepin' it simple.  Keepin' it real.  That's what I'm all about, Friends.  

I made my Valentine's Day mailbox to look like a pinata, because I still want a pinata!

As for me, my Valentine's mailbox is in the shape of a pinata this year, because what I really want is a pinata.  But I won't turn my snoot up at finding chocolate or hand sanitizer in my mailbox.  It's the thought that counts, Friends!

Well, Valentine's Day is only two weeks away, so we'd all better get crackalackin' on our mailboxes!  Remember.  Don't be lame!  Don't phone this in!

I love ya, Friends!
  I'll see ya tomorrow!  Muah!