Valentine’s Day is this week, which means that for the love of all that is good, the sharing of my past Valentine’s Day memories are almost over. Since so much time has been devoted to the holiday of love, I wanted to share one last post on my memories regarding Valentine’s Day. This one is the big one folks, so grab a seat and relish in all the excitement of V-Day!

One of the reasons this holiday is fun for me is that it is truly a social holiday. Growing up I was not aware of the romantic implications for this holiday. Special dinner dates and boxes of chocolates covered in diamonds was something I was not privy too. Instead V-Day was about handing out cards to your friends and classmates and simply sharing your thoughts on how awesome you thought everyone was. At least that is how I felt it to be.

I was not what you would call a cool kid. It was like kids knew I was odd the first day of Kindergarten. I was just odd. This is not one of those “feel sorry for me” kinds of things. I was seriously a weird kid. There weren’t many friends in my life. Being shy could not even dare scratch the surface on my social skills and in third grade I was forced to wear glasses, which made things worse. Glasses were not in vogue in 1990. I had those garish glasses that effectively covered my entire face. I was essentially a fart: no one wanted anything to do with me. So Valentine’s Day was one of those days where everyone in my class had no other choice but to say something to me, on a cute fun Valentine card no less. (This meant I had to say something to my classmates too, which was nice because I got to practice on being less shy.)

Every year I also got the biggest thrill with making my own Valentine mail box/card holder. Remember doing that? I loved the chance to be creative and make my V-Day mail box full of my favorite colors of red and pink. I also wanted to share my most favorite Valentine card box.

This piece of awesomeness was from third grade. My class that year was given the assignment of making something from home and bringing it to class. While I was born with a dork gene, my mom was born with a craft gene. She made this Valentine box for me for my Valentine class party and I felt like I had the prettiest Valentine box in the whole world.

The breakdown goes like this, this box started out as a plastic box with lid. My mom then went hot glue crazy with lace trim and plastic jeweled hearts and some pretty bows. Now the amazing bow on top with the hearts was actually tied by my mom. She has mad skills with making a bow. I would love to know how to tie a bow. (I didn’t fully understand how to tie a shoe until I was 9, so you all know I will never, ever, have great bow tying skills.)

Now for the fun part! I’ve kept most of my favorite childhood Valentines from my classmates. Here are some of my favorites, though I don’t think they all came from my third grade Valentine class party.

A Silver Surfer card is always fun. I never really read Silver Surfer comics, but I always thought it was cool that he basically surfed in space. How amazing is that? I want to surf through space and not have it turn out like all that messiness in Gravity.

Disney V-Day cards were always a hit. DuckTails were really big and I miss 80’s Minnie. Her floppy bow was everything.

Beetlejuice cards? Uh, yeah! I lived for that cartoon and the Whatchamacallit commercial that would air during the break.

Astro was the coolest dog from the future. So was this Valentine card! (Seriously, why haven’t the Jetsons returned into the pop culture stratosphere?)

Oh these were some special Valentine cards. Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers was the coolest thing going when I was a kid. I of course loved Gadget, and when someone in my class gave me this Gadget card, it was like they were looking into my soul. Ok, maybe not really, but I was so psyched to have one.

I remember Tiny Toons were really big one Valentine’s Day too. These three cards were passed out by three different classmates! The laws of physics were on my side that day because I did not get a similar one at all. Ah the pure perfection of Tiny Toons.

I remember boys in my class really having a huge fanfare with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and it only made sense that we’d get some TMNT Valentine cards. Everyone loved TMNT. It’s one of the reasons the line is still able to reinvent itself every few years. The only thing I didn’t understand was that my classmates clearly picked the wrong Turtle for me. (I’ve only ever had eyes for Michelangelo.)   

This Toad card is pretty cool. There isn’t a name on it, so I am not sure how I ended up with this, but I have loved the celebratory image on this card. It’s just fun and full of heart.

Talk about a Link to the past. These cards are everything that a Valentine card should be. Like the Toad card, these are blank, so I can only assume that I had a Nintendo Valentine card set at some point. That is something to truly love. (I even want to say there were some Metroid cards too, but I have not been able to find them.)

Valentine’s Day has always been one of my favorite holidays. While I was not always one to have a lot of friends, my third grade Valentine party was pretty amazing. Not only did I have the cool Valentine box made by my mom, but my mom and baby brother went to the party to help with the festivities. Well, my brother was a rock star. Wild as a March hair, he totally won my class over. He was trying to get into everything and even threw some of my teacher’s chalk into the pot of hot cheese dip. My classmates thought I was the luckiest sister in the world to have such a crazy brother. So for a brief moment in time, I had my classmates noticing me and thinking I was somewhat cool. And I had my brother to thank.

I hope that you all have a wonderful Valentine’s Day and have enjoyed all these memories of mine. I have enjoyed sharing these various artifacts from V-Day’s past. Feel free to share some of your past memories. And get ready, there is always more fun stuff headed your way on Retro-Daze!