Oh my bad, that’s the other highly commercialized holiday.
I’m not going to sit here and gripe about how much I detest Valentines Day (well maybe just a little) but I just find it to be another useless time of year manufactured and perpetuated by card & chocolate makers. Even when I wasn’t single last year, the sociopath and I were returning from a week in Puerto Rico a day or two before Valentines Day and I didn’t want to deal with the hoopla then, so not much has changed.
I remember growing up and the whole concept of Valentines Day was force feed in elementary school. Everyone had to bring in those little single sided cards you’d get from the grocery store and hand them out. I remember sitting at the kitchen table scribbling the same message over & over & over again, twenty something cards later, I was cursing under my breath because my hand caught a cramp. Oh and lets not forget the nasty little candy with the messages on them, to me they reminded me of fruit flavored Tums or chalk.
In 7th grade I have one memory stands out vividly. The girl who smelled like pee (you know every school had one), decided to join in and give out cards. I felt bad for her because every time she passed someone’s desk and gave them a card, you could hear the laughter from the students. I remember seeing her during recess sans cards and with tears in her eyes. Now I’m not sure whatever became of her, but, I’m hoping her Valentines Days have drastically improved. Actually, I think I’ll look her up on Facebook, because everybody and their momma (well probably just my mother) has a Facebook page nowadays.
Now that I have a child of my own, I don’t force the idea of Valentines Day on him, but I still see schools haven’t changed. This week he came home with a letter requesting snack donations for their little party.
Now here’s what I dont’ understand.
It’s ok for Valentines Day to be celebrated in the schools, but it’s not ok for each kid, regardless of their religion to pray in school? It’s ok for kids to believe that there was actually some cross-dressing midget with a cloth diaper flying around assaulting people with his bow & arrow in hopes that they’d fall in love, but it’s not ok for a kid to pray to either Jesus, Allah or whomever?
So needless to say, my son will not have any cards to give out or little chalky tasting heart candies with messages on them. When I did give him the option earlier this week to hand out cards, his only question was, did he have to pay for them himself or if I would, because if it had to come out of his own money, he’d rather spend it on something worthwhile. Now, I’m not sure if that thought process will follow him down the road when a female tries to get him to buy her something for Valentines Day when he’s older, but he definitely gets his sarcasm honestly.
So this year for Valentines Day, more than likely I’ll spend it doing my taxes, maybe grab dinner & drinks with a “friend”, but there will be no pomp & circumstance. Honestly, I look forward to the day after, when all of the boxes of candy go on sale at CVS, it’s a recession, 50% off, you can’t be that!
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