One of those things is the whole school-time Valentine's parties. I remember going out and finding just the right assortment of cards. I had a big class in grade school, so I had to get a big enough box -- usually the kind with 40 "student" cards and 2 "teacher" cards -- so that meant they weren't always the "cool" ones. Usually it was the semi-generic ones (no major cartoon characters or anything, but since this was the 1970s, that wasn't a big deal), and they all had pictures and sayings on them like a picture of a great big bumblebee saying "Bee Mine." I remember painstakingly writing out everyone's names and putting one piece of candy (a hard sugar heart or the like) into each envelope before sealing them. And at school there was the morning event of getting to decorate a "mailbox" by cutting a slit in the top of a shoebox and pasting cut-out paper hearts all over it. Then, during the party, people could come by and drop their cards into your mailbox and you could open them when you got home. (In some small way, I think the idea of taking them home was smart -- that way the rest of the class didn't find out how few/how many cards you got or from whom...)
Hmmm... I may have to go out and buy some of those candy conversation hearts today... But, I digress...
The other thing I remember from growing up were the sugar cookies my mom would make and decorate with pink frosting hearts. The cookies themselves were a thick sugar cookie -- not the kind you roll and cut out -- and they stood quite well on their own. But at Valentine's Day, they got the extra embellishment of the frosting in the shape of a heart. All the way through college, I would receive those cookies in the mail for Valentine's Day, and although my friends would start by raising an eyebrow, they always enjoyed the cookies, too.
These days we're all more calorie conscious. And schools have to be more careful and politically correct when it comes to "forcing" children to give Valentines to their classmates. Even so, this year when it came time for me to send a February care package to my nephew (a freshman in college), I made cookies and frosted them. Although... Since he's just joined a fraternity, I didn't want to embarrass him with pink frosting hearts, so I made heart-shaped cookies, but frosted them in blue (one of the fraternity's colors).
** sidenote ** Without any prior notice about this posting, my parents sent Christopher and me a Valentine's Day care package this week. It didn't contain cookies (there was peanut brittle for me and fudge for Christopher), but my card in it was a Valentine with pictures of candy conversation hearts on it. Hmmm... Do you think my folks know me pretty well? ** end sidenote **
Oh. Don't worry. I also kept a few of the cookies. They are in the kitchen in all of their pink-frosted glory for Christopher and me to eat. After all, you really just can't beat pink frosting hearts.
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