I had torn the house up looking for the perfect box. No closet or drawer or storage cabinet had been left undisturbed. Many boxes had been discovered, evaluated and discarded. The box had to be just right, because only one would be good enough to take to school. I had to find the perfect size and shape and it had to be sturdy enough to decorate. Some kids would use shoe boxes, but I usually settled on one that was tall and slender. I wanted mine to stand out and look different.
Everyone would bring their chosen box to school the week before Valentines Day. Then we would spend our art sessions for several days decorating it. It must be covered from top to bottom in a beautiful red crepe paper. I liked to put little pleats into mine; I didn’t like the box to be just smooth paper.
Once the box was decorated I covered the lid that would fit on top. I had to cut a slit in the top and then fold the paper into the slit and glue it down on the inside of the top. By the time I had all the red crepe paper on the box, my hands were stained red all over, because the paper and the white Elmer’s school glue did not play well together and the red ended up all over me.
Once I was satisfied with the red paper, it was time to do the decorations for the box. I always used a heart shaped white paper doily, a throw back to the days with Grandmother, and then a smaller red heart from construction paper on top of that.
If I was feeling particularly fancy I would put another heart on top of the red one, usually one of the valentines that came in the box that I had purchased the week before. It usually had a puppy on the valentine and the simple message of Be My Valentine. I would write my name in the heart shaped area.
Purchasing the Valentines was always a grand adventure. I would go to the drug store and look through the little boxes that usually had 25-50 little cards. Each box was about 50 cents. There were usually three to four different choices of boxes and they had different valentines in each one.
Some of the boxes had lots of valentines with animals on them, some with more of the frilly hearts. It was always a tough decision, trying to decide on the perfect box. I was partial to the ones with little animals, in particular puppies and kittens on them. Once the Valentines were decided on, I would take them home and spend every free minute for the next week trying to decide which Valentine was to go to each classmate and to the teachers.
Each Valentine had to have the right message for each recipient. You didn’t want a boy to think you really liked him if you didn’t, but each classmate had to get a Valentine. I would never have considered not giving each classmate a Valentine. So the decision was a tricky one sometimes and other times the Valentine would scream out the name of the person that was to get it.
Most of these little Valentines didn’t have envelopes so you just put the name of the recipient on the front and if there was a space you put your name on the front also, if not your name went on the back. Some had envelopes and these were the ones that went to special people and you would put candy hearts in with them. The candy hearts also had messages and everyone read the message before they ate them, so it had to be the right message.
When Valentines Day arrived we all came to school a little bit early so we could walk around the room and put the Valentines in the appropriate box. It was almost like Christmas and giving each classmate a present. Even though I had my name on the Valentine I didn’t want them to see me put it in the box so it would be a surprise.
During the afternoon when it was time for our milk break, we would all get our carton of milk and come back to the classroom. Each of us would pick up our Valentine box and bring it back to our desk. But we wouldn’t open it right away, because someone’s Mother would have brought cookies or cupcakes, so we had to eat the treats and drink our milk. But first we had a little bit of business to attend to.
Our class always elected a Valentine King and Queen and they had a special place at the front of the class for the treat time. A couple of the kids in the class always made the crowns for the King and Queen to wear. They were made from construction paper.
Most years it was an easy decision to decide who was going to win. One person would start the ball rolling and we would all agree on who it was going to be. That is all but the ones that we had chosen and no one told them ahead of time.
One classmate would inform the teacher who the King and Queen was that year and she would announce the winners. They had to go to the front of the classroom to get their crowns and to sit up front for the treats.
One year we decided on two kids that everyone thought were going to be a couple one day. But when Valentines Day arrived the girl we had chosen was sick. She was very shy so she had pretended to be sick so she wouldn’t have to come to school and be Queen. I don’t know how she found out that we had chosen the two of them, but somehow she had.
We didn’t know she had played sick until one of our reunions and she finally confessed. We were right though; they did become a couple and dated all through high school. They married after college and are still together.
This year I tried to find some of the old Valentines so I could send them to everyone just like I used to. Well, all the little boxes of Valentines were either Sponge Bob or action figures or Ice Age animals. What happened to the darling little heart shaped valentines with the cute little sayings on them that we used to buy.
Some of the little valentines I saw didn’t even have a heart on them, and I am sure they will not instill the memories that we have from the little heart shaped Valentines that we gave and received that said “Be My Valentine”. To contact Sandy: [email protected]
