VALENTINE'S DAY

Jon & Kate Plus 8
Season 3 (2008)

This month I used some Christmas cash to buy the first three seasons of Jon & Kate Plus 8 on DVD.  Nick was okay with it once he learned each season only cost around $3 and therefore Kate Gosselin wouldn’t be profiting much from my shopping spree (if spending $6 counts as a spree).  This Valentine’s Day episode comes from the show’s third season, meaning it’s pre-divorce, pre-Kate on Dancing with the Stars, pre-everything is horrible.   The kids are very young and unaffected and Jon and Kate are only gently bickering, as opposed to engaging in outright warfare.  

During the course of the episode Jon and Kate represent the two opposing views of Valentine’s Day.  Jon thinks it’s a fake holiday invented by greeting card companies.  He waits until Valentine’s Day itself to go out and buy Kate a present, which he “wraps” in the car.  He also throws a tantrum when she asks him to wear a festive tee-shirt.  “It’s a medium!” he yells in disgust before hurling the shirt on the ground.  Knowing the cheating, lawsuits and acrimony that lie just a couple of years ahead, the image of the discarded “I Love Kate” tee-shirt on the floor seems more than a little prescient.  Plus it really bothers me that the shirt actually reads “I Heart Love Kate” and therefore makes no sense.

I Heart Love You Too

Kate, on the other hands, goes all out for the holiday in a way that I can only admire.  She decorates, puts together little gift bags for the kids, and proudly wears her “I Heart Love Jon” shirt.  She also themes all of the kids' food, making heart-shaped pancakes, heart-shaped grilled cheese and even cutting cucumbers into hearts.  I am a sucker for themed holiday food of any kind, so I highly approve.  

Heart-Shaped Grilled Cheese & Cucumbers for 6

Kate also creates edible Play-Doh for the kids (the one kid that tries to eat everything also tries to eat paper hearts at one point) and organizes a scavenger hunt in the house.  Every single thing seen and done in this episode is somehow themed to the holiday, thanks to Kate’s efforts, and this is a pre-fame version of Kate that’s quite likeable.  She seems to be doing everything to genuinely make a nice holiday for her kids, as opposed to doing it for the sake of the cameras.  This truly is the show at its peak, and by the next season it would all start to grow tainted by fame, money and out-of-control egos.

While decorating, it's best to coordinate one's outfit with the paper cut-outs

I know a lot of you are probably more sympathetic to Jon’s view of Valentine’s Day as a sort of bullshit holiday, but I of course am all for it. And I say that as someone who actually worked at a greeting card store for a couple of years and witnessed the hordes of last-minute husbands and boyfriends, like Jon in this episode, desperately buying whatever they could lay their hands on to alleviate the romantic pressure.  But I believe that we need Valentine’s Day to break up the doldrums of February and rather than ignore it, I agree with Kate in trying to make it even more of a big deal than it already is, replete with decorations and themed food and outfits.  As Kate says in this episode, it’s all about love-- whether that’s love for your kids, your soon-to-be-ex husband, or simply the holiday itself.

Recurring Themes: Jon runs out to the mall and does some Last Minute Shopping (which is also a Christmas trope!).

Valentine’s Day Quotient: 5

See It, Skip It, Own It?
This is a charming episode and chockfull of Valentine’s goodness.  Watch and enjoy!