Michelle: We don’t fuss too much over Valentine’s Day

U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama

Here’s Michelle Obama’s advice for couples this Valentine’s Day - laugh with your partner.

She says it’s what she and President Barack Obama do, and it seems to be working. Their marriage, although tested throughout the years by his political ambitions - for the Illinois Senate, the U.S. Senate and later the presidency - is going on 19 years.

“I think a lot of laughing,” the First Lady said at a White House luncheon with reporters who asked about the Obamas’ union. “I think in our house we don’t take ourselves too seriously, and laughter is the best form of unity, I think, in a marriage.

“So we still find ways to have fun together, and a lot of it is private and personal. But we keep each other smiling and that’s good,” she added. It also helps that Obama is “very romantic.”

“He remembers dates, birthdays,” Mrs. Obama said last week on Live! With Regis and Kelly . “He doesn’t forget a thing, even when I think he is. I’ll have a little attitude. I give him a little attitude, but he always comes through.” “Got to keep the romance alive, even in the White House,” she said.

As for Valentine’s Day on Monday, the First Lady said her husband would do right by giving her jewellery.

“You can’t go wrong,” she said.

But Mrs. Obama also said they don’t fuss too much over the day that’s about celebrating love and affection between couples. Last year, the Obamas spent Valentine’s Day at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland.

“We don’t make a big deal out of Valentine’s Day because my birthday was the 17th (of January),” Mrs. Obama told Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa. She noted, too, that Christmas was just a few weeks before that. “So by Feb. 14, we’re kind of tired,” Mrs. Obama said.