Valentine's Day, circa 1975: students decorate shoe boxes with foil, hearts, lace, doilies and whatnot, cut a slit in the top, and bring them to school to collect valentines from classmates. The class has a party, with homemade cupcakes and cookies brought in by the room mothers, and the students open the valentines. If you're very lucky, the students might get a few treats in their valentine boxes, but mostly, they just get cards... that they actually read.
Valentine's Day, circa 2008: students decorate a valentine holder at school to collect the candy, pencils, tattoos, small toys, and, oh yes, the cards that are passed out. Handing out only a valentine with no extra loot attached is considered passe. No one is allowed to eat homemade goodies made by the parents, for fear that a revengeful mother has hidden razors or arsenic in the treats, or at the very least has brought underbaked cookies teeming with rapidly-multiplying bacteria. So the students munch on the candy they received, while watching "Charlie Brown's Valentine" or some other valentine-related film. Does anyone read the cards anymore?
Sigh. I'm feeling a little nostalgic.
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2 comments:
What are you, some kind of Commie? Don't you know it's the American way to commercialize everything and turn all aspects of our culture into an orgiastic, consumptive spending spree? Christmas, Halloween, Valentines Day: these are what has made America number one!
I actually had to consider that accusation for a minute. Am I a Commie? Probably not, but I may be a socialist. Democracy and capitalism don't seem to be doing our country much good these days.
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