Whatever Happened to Valentine's Day Fun?

Valentine's Day in grade school is one of those dumb-fun things that can't really be fathomed after you're twelve years old.

From first to sixth grade, in early February, the teacher would remind us to bring a box of some sort for our next art class. For an hour or two on the Friday before Valentine's day, we'd be given the run of anything pink, red, or white in the supply cupboard. Girls usually brought in stickers and lace and glitter to use as well, while the boys begrudgingly made do. Some kids created elaborate 'boxes' at home and spent the time setting them up in the classroom. I remember quite clearly that my friend Candy brought in a paper machete Q-Bert one year. What Q-Bert and Valentine's Day had to do with one another I don't know, but it was regarded as being the best card box that year. My boxes, I have to admit, were generally substandard. I don't have much of an artistic gene, and what I do have seemed to preclude gluing construction paper on to a smallish shoebox.

Over the next week, before class or during in-door recesses (and there were many of those in February in Omaha, Nebraska), classmates would do the rounds and deliver their Valentines through the box slots. Everyone got a card from everybody else. Classes were small enough that you remembered who was who and I'd spend one evening at least carefully penning names to the backs of flimsy paper cards depicting whatever cartoon characters were popular at the moment. Because nothing says love like the Thunder Cats. I always took my time deciding which card should go to whom. Even if the sentiments meant little and were maybe not even read, you didn't want to say, "Have a Smurfy Day" to the girl who had refused to give you a good push on the swings.

It would all culminate with the in-class party. Cookies and pink-frosted cupcakes would be passed around by volunteer-helper moms, but the real excitement was in opening your box and seeing just how much V-Day candy you had accumulated. One of the best things about having a smallish Valentines Day box was that by party-time it was absolutely bursting with cards and candy. Sure it was the same amount as everyone else had, but it seemed to be so much more. Not everyone included candy with their Valentines, but enough did to sustain a sugar rush for a good week. There were lollipops, not my favorites, but they didn't melt. And there were the conversation hearts that would stain hands pink, yellow and purple. I'd usually try to trade for as many spicy orange hearts as I could manage, regardless of what they said. But my very favorites were the little bags of cinnamon hearts. At that big Valentine's Day party, we'd have contests to see just who could survive putting more then three cinnamon hearts in their mouth. I'd always win, I remember clearly. Valentines Day was right up there with the class Christmas party and right behind the Halloween party. Any day with that much candy had to be a good day.

Of course, the kid-magic is gone by junior high. At that point, Valentine's Day becomes a holiday not of candy consumption, but of who is connected to whom, and who got flowers at the front desk. Instead of gleefully shoving cellophane bags of cinnamon candies into a shoebox, you're reduced to furtively slipping cards into your crush's locker or avoiding the guy you don't like who obviously has a gift for you. Next thing you know, diamonds are being considered in very different kinds of boxes. No construction paper involved. It's all taken way too seriously.

So, do me a favor this Valentine's. Have a Roaring Great Thunder Cats Day and challenge someone you love to withstand the power of not three, but five!, cinnamon hearts.