One indication that we’ve settled into the right community for us is the classroom Valentine’s Day exchange. What a FRAUGHT holiday this has the potential to be! Sneering at sweets! Sneering at non-sweets! Sneering at store-bought cards! Sneering at homemade cards!
In my kids’ classrooms, things are pretty much the exact way I would have set them up if I’d been in charge. There is a party, and the party is composed of one Obvious Treat (cupcake or cookie) plus fruit, cheese, crackers and/or pretzels and/or popcorn, and juice boxes. The teacher generally asks that the juice boxes be 100% juice, which is right where I am on the spectrum too, though I’d be fine with it if she didn’t specify. There are no other adjectives used in the list: no “organic,” for example, or “unprocessed.” And I would be okay with two Obvious Treats at the party, but I’d be unhappy if it were none.
Valentine-exchanging is optional but all-or-nothing: you either bring one for everyone or you don’t bring any. This too would be my preference. (The children mentioned to me this year that there is no safeguard in place for making sure an EQUAL valentine is brought for all the students in the class. I too would rather not set up a policy unless it started being a problem.)
The valentines themselves are the true marker of the community. If everyone but me sent clever Pinterest-type valentines, I’d feel uncomfortable; if cards with trinkets/sweets were banned, I’d feel unhappy. Instead, it is exactly the mix to make me feel like I can do anything I want. In a class of 24 kids, the rough breakdown is:
– 2 Pinteresty/crafty/elaborate valentines
– 1 completely homemade valentine, kid-made/construction-paper style
– 1 completely homemade valentine, bigger but non-Pinteresty: for example, a homemade card with a homemade lollipop/cookie
– 1 valentine made with a valentine-making kit
– 7 store-bought valentines, 24-for-$3 type, no added items
– 2 store-bought valentines of the “bag of M&M’s or goldfish crackers with a to/from on it” type
– 5 store-bought valentines where a bonus item is included in the set: a matching pencil or sticker or tattoo or lollipop
– 5 store-bought valentines where a bonus item has been separately selected and added: a Hershey’s Kiss or lollipop or trinket taped to the card, for example
– 1 valentine from the teacher: often a bag with a pencil, eraser, and treat; sometimes also a valentine from the assistant teacher
This is not a strict count, clearly. For one thing, it varies considerably from classroom to classroom and from year to year: one year, one of the kids had to bring valentines home in TWO bags because coincidentally most of the families went more towards all-out (one did a beach pail and shovel, with “I dig you, Valentine!”); other years, a kid is disappointed because he or she got two pieces of candy while siblings got more like ten. For another thing, I wouldn’t notice if one or two kids in the class opted not to bring valentines. But this gives a general idea of the distribution.
For me, these proportions mean I can do ANYTHING I WANT. If I see a fun idea one year, or if I particularly love Valentine’s Day and like to do it up, or if a child wants to go fancy that year, or if a child and I enjoy doing such projects together, I would feel like the community at large would not sneer at that. If I wanted instead to buy a box of valentines and not add a treat or trinket, or cut hearts out of construction paper, I would feel like the community at large would not sneer at THAT.
I feel like I can add candy or not: maybe a parent or two in the class would prefer their kids not have any candy or particular kinds of candy, but if so they’re handling that themselves rather than trying to make all the other parents’ children follow those preferences as well. I feel like it’s fine if I buy TV-show-tie-in valentines or fine if I don’t: maybe one person sneers at SpongeBob, but the community at large has spoken its preferences, and the community at large thinks both ways are fine.
Pinterest sure has changed the game though, hasn’t it? My kindergartner got (and gave) all crafty type Valentines. My 5th grader got a wider mix of mostly store bought and some clever home made Valentines. Of note, the 5th grade class had a competition for best Valentine’s box. Holy cow! They were elaborate boxes. One had a cut-out for an ipod which played a slide show with music. When my 15 yr old was in lower elementary (in the dark ages) his Valentine collection system was two pieces of red construction paper cut into a heart shape with the edges stapled together.
My 11 month old received a Pinterest type Valentine and I laughed out loud. But then I am very reserved on buying babies things (for Christmas, I wrapped up some old toys from the basement bin and naturally he liked the bows and wrapping paper best of all).
My Kindergartner’s mix seems pretty much in line with your mix and it made me feel better once I saw it. I was worried they would all be Pinterest ones but I think it is tempered by the fact that mine had a very specific request (Star Wars) and I would imagine some of the other parents faced similar specificity. I really loved the one where the little boy wrote a message on a piece of plain white paper and decorated it up with stickers. I felt bad throwing that one away…it was so sweet and had to have taken him some time since he wrote the message himself.
We had snow days Thursday and Friday and Monday was a holiday, so my second grader took her valentines, which would fall in the category of kid-made/construction paper/decorated with stickers and stencil drawings, to school today. I expect a mix of styles similar to what you describe will come back with her this afternoon.
The boy is in middle school and in the too-old-AND-too-young for Valentines’s Day place right now. When he was younger he used to make one design on the computer and print enough for his whole class. No need for personalization.
Valentine’s Day was snowed out here so I only sent ours into school today and won’t have them come home until tomorrow. But yes, those are exactly the proportions I would like to see. Because I am the kind of person who occasionally goes big and homemade and has fun doing it. But I am also the kind of person who buys a box of valentines (fairies) and makes Elizabeth write her own name on them all and tape small things of bubbles to them herself, which we did this year. I had plans to make little heart hair clips for all the girls and little monster clips for all the boys, but we didn’t get a class list and the teacher requested them to be all the same. Plus, due to Things, I didn’t have time for that this year. But I really like the idea so I will probably do it eventually. So your valentines ratio sounds perfect.
This is so funny, because as I was going through F’s class valentines, I was also thinking how they validated our choice in preschools. I am not a Pinterest-y/crafty person (not that there’s anything wrong with that!), and I didn’t see a single fancy Valentine in her bag; many were store-bought (some with character tie-ins, some not), some had candy, many were kid-made and/or had random stickers/kid-writing on them. Overall, totally low-key but still fun and sweet. The class celebration was also exactly the kind of thing I would have planned if I’d had a say in it. I felt like high-fiving everyone for a job well (but not TOO well) done.
I felt the same way about our class this year. When I saw one boy walking in with cake pops for each kid attached to a valentine with his picture on it (the one where he’s holding out his hand, and the cake pop is inserted into a slit to make it look like he’s holding the pop) I got worried that our Star Wars Lego valentines with candy taped to them would be frowned upon. But no, there was a great mix of both. Way to go, parents.
Our little guy is in kindergarten, and I had no idea what to expect. I didn’t even THINK of the Pinterest angle- only one of those came home, and it was my favorite. I was more stressed over the ‘student should write his classmates names’ aspect… his handwriting is awful (he’s a boy! in kindergarten! why are they even writing yet?!) I was really happy to see a mix of parent and kid-written names on those cards… and to see that my guys chicken scratch looks about par for the course!
you know what surprised me (in retrospect)? only one chocolate (mini hersheys bar)- the rest were lollipops or other candy.
Ours were 100% completely homemade valentine, kid-made and store-bought. Which I liked.
However, I will add that last year I did a Pinteresty/crafty Valentine (downloaded and printed a template, which copy center also cut for me, to which we stuck, with glue dots, a small bottle of bubbles). This year we did store-bought Frozen valentines which included a pencil. I gotta say, while this year was cheaper (spent $3.40 on 2 packs thanks to a sale), the time involved was as much or greater than last year. Each valentine had to be punched out of a poorly-perforated larger sheet which meant we had to resort to using scissors and the cuts were somewhat curvy/elaborate so the 1st grader couldn’t really help with that part.
ANYWAY…I think I may go back to the printed download with something stuck to it next year. Even if ours are the only one in the bag like that because it was WAY EASIER.
Our mix was about the same as yours, perhaps a slightly higher percentage of “store-bought-no-additions” folded character cards, which I attribute to the fact that my kid’s class is 75% boys (in 1st grade, lord help that teacher).
Koi gave out homemade fishtail rainbow loom bracelets in school colors. Is that too Pinteresty/crafty? I just didn’t want her “creations” all over my dang house anymore.
Our county schools won’t allow any candy or homemade treats of any sort. Instead, my son just came home with his bag of valentines and only 2 were colored paper hearts decorated by the student (one was attached to a mini bottle of bubbles). Not one pinterest valentine in the whole bag! All the others were store bought typical Valentines, and out of the 20 of them, two had erasers and 2 had tattoos. All the others were just signed. Simple. I kind of like that no one went overboard. And because none of these are super special or meaningful to my son, they’re easier to toss in the garbage in a day or two.
P.S. My son cut out hearts from craft paper and we attached a pencil to each one. No funny poem or anything… just “TO” and “FROM”.
I’m surprised to see how many people have done kid-made cards only because we were the only ones in class who did them (or the kids did them) (my involvement include Adult Beverages, because OMG I hate crafting of any kind). I left it up to them to decide if they wanted to go to the store to pick some out or make them and they wanted to make them. I was happy to let them, but then when I saw that everyone else did store bought I hoped my kids didn’t feel silly? But maybe I’m over thinking that part of it?
My daughter is in her first year of preschool and I was caught by surprise at Halloween when she came home with a bag of treats from various kids in the class, many of them homemade (my favorite was a baggie full of Cheese Balls labeled “Pumpkin Poop”). At Christmas, we traveled on the day they had their party, but I probably wouldn’t have thought to send anything. She had a big bag of treats when we got back from the two-week vacation. Oops, again.
So when Valentine’s Day came around and I knew we were supposed to send something, I froze up in the Target aisle and couldn’t figure out WTH to do. Because they asked us not to fill out the “To” line (takes too long for the kids to hand out individualized ones), I got caught up on gender and didn’t like any of the highly gendered character ones. But I also didn’t like any of the prepackaged candy ones – that is, I didn’t think the candy types were ones the kids would enjoy that much (Nestle crunch? Really?). Ultimately, I totally went Pinterest, probably partly out of guilt for not participating in either the Halloween or Christmas treat giving. And then I stressed out for days over whether it was TOO MUCH or NOT ENOUGH, or whether one Hershey kiss stuck to the valentine was enough chocolate, or whether what I made would fall apart in everyone’s baggie or box or whatever (turns out their teacher decorated shiny new paint cans with hearts for each kid to carry their goodies home in – they were AWESOME).
Ultimately, there was a very nice mix of candy, homemade and storebought treats, homemade and storebought valentines, and non-food trinkets. Mine was the only really fancy one, but other people did photo valentines – i.e., used a picture of their kid as part of the valentine, which I didn’t realize was a Thing, but since at least three parents did it, I guess maybe it’s not so odd? We are a co-op, so we get to know the kids pretty well. The only thing I felt weird about was that our valentines were completely free of puns or little sayings. I just stuck “Love My Kid’s Name” on them.
It is nice to know, though, that I am not the only one who not only stresses out over what’s appropriate, but also appreciates it when I can do any of the above. Sometime, I like to get a little Pinteresty, but sometimes you forget what day it is, and then are glad that no one will sneer at Minnie Mouse and a lollipop.
I am totally not kidding at all when I say that I was recently added to a facebook group of local moms who are in up arms about how ridiculous it is that their elementary aged kids are given candy at holiday parties at school, complete with photos of the “ludicrous” little piles of red heart-shaped lollipops. It’s almost too absurd to be believed.
OH! OH! And one of the lollipop-ranters went on about how ridiculous it was that the teacher allowed her child to be given all those lollipops, then said that they sent Hershey’s kisses. LOLWHUT??
This is pretty much how ours were too. I guess what we sent in would be considered pinteresty but it was really easy, and I sent ring pops. There was a good mix of everything too, except I don’t remember any non-sweets treats in his bag.
To be completely honest the whole palaver sounds utterly exhausting!
I truly cannot see the point of adding in a ‘holiday experience’ for SVD, surely it’s supposed to be for sending one (ok, maybe two!) card to one special person PRIVATELY? Thank goodness that here in the UK mass distribution is not a ‘thing’ yet as far as I know.
Bah humbug!
I got hooked on personalized Etsy valentines when you used to put them on Milk and Cookies, Swistle! So I did that again this year. Very fun. My kids got about the same range your kids got: a couple 100% homemade, several store-bought with no additions, mostly store-bought with candy, one or two Pinteresty ones. All very relaxed.
I’m in that sort of community, too. Turns out that in middle school, kids neither give nor get Valentines, so I’m off the hook, but in the past, we’ve done:
Store bought; computer printed; and (my favorite) pick a clip art image and have your kid make a fingerprint heart in the middle of the image with red ink. On that last one, we also type “Happy Valentine’s Day from [kid’s name]. Fold in quarters. Because I am CHEAP.
We never had candies or extra stuff attached to the valentines we gave out at school when I was a kid, so I was totally taken by surprise when my children (who are now in their 20s) brought home valentines with candies and such in them. No idea if it’s a regional thing (grew up in Maine, moved to Colorado for grad school and never left), or if people have just gotten more elaborate over the years (probably the latter).
With my kids, we typically did the store-bought assortments with nothing attached, but I was almost always the “room mom,” in charge of purchasing the treats (donations were encouraged but not required, so there was always an adequate budget), so there was additional effort on our part (not that I minded). Much as I might have liked to send or bring homemade treats, the school enacted a “no home-made goodies” rule after an outbreak of HepB, so store-bought treats (some sweet, some slightly healthier like cheese and crackers, popcorn, etc.) were the rule. I usually had a few games at the ready, although generally refreshments and opening Valentines took up most of the time allotted for the Valentine’s Day “party.”