There is a certain pressure placed on Valentine’s Day as a holiday. If someone is in a relationship, they need to hit all the stops to prove their devotion and love for their partner.
If someone isn’t in a relationship, they are ridiculed as lonely and left to hide in the shadows as all the dinner reservations are taken up. Events like Galentine’s Day attempt to fight the stigma of being single, allowing friends to give love instead of partners.
Either way, Valentine’s Day comes with heaps of stress. It makes a person want to go back to the days before Valentine’s Day was even a holiday.
Valentine’s Day, typically celebrated by adults, but has been converted in past years for kids with a Valentine’s Day party.
This is by far the best way to celebrate Valentine’s Day: every kid in an elementary school class buys a bag of candy to give to their class. It’s the first Halloween of the year, just no costume needed.
Not to mention, every kid has to have a box or bag to receive their candy. This itself becomes a craft. Who doesn’t love an activity? Trying to make the best box in the class was its own competition, taking an empty tissue box and slapping enough glitter on it until it reflected under the fluorescents.
All of this preparation led to an amazing party. Every kid had their box on their desk and then it was a free for all, dropping candy into every box. This was probably the U.S. Postal Service at work trying to advertise the mail system.
A lot of the individual candy bags kids bought had a place to write who it was from and who was receiving it. This was a place to write little notes as a practice for yearbook signing a few months later.
Going back to your seat after being a baby cupid version of Santa Claus, everyone got to look through the goodies they received. This was the candy restock from winter holidays, having to last kids until Easter if they celebrated.
This was usually just the beginning of the party. Usually there were games, crafts and even a dance party using the projector to put on “Just Dance” to distract us kids.
These were the days, free of the pressure of a perfect Valentine’s Day. All we needed was a pretty box to receive some candy. I would like to petition to bring this activity back, hosting either in the dorms, classes or at an event in Davies Student Center.
This is probably a better idea in theory, but reliving that sweet time of receiving candy from classmates just because it was February. Nothing can top the party of the century, as evidenced by the topic of this article.
If you are able to this year, I would recommend doing this activity with friends. Get some tissue or cereal boxes, decorate them and give each other some little gifts. Just don’t be the person who gives pencils instead of candy.
Fisher can be reached at [email protected].
