It is almost Valentine's Day, which means two things. First off it means people will be shoveling money to Hallmark, flower companies and purveyors of crappy candy, balloons and heart shaped trinkets. Secondly it means I need to write my annual rant on how much this holiday sucks rocks.
Elli needed to bring Valentine's cards to school for her whole class this year. They sent around a class list so that we would be sure to get cards for everyone; this is nice in that the unpopular kids don't just get left out as they did so much in the past but it is crappy in that every kid is going to get ~20 paper cards they will immediately throw in the garbage. There isn't a good way around this that I can see... I can avoid paying for cheap, trashy mass produced cards by doing them up myself but it only costs $5 for cards and candy for her entire class if I buy the junk and way more than that if I buy decent art products to do it myself. Because I procrastinated to the last minute on buying all the junk hoping to find a way around it I ended up being stuck buying cards that came with lollipops attached so now I am not only killing trees to celebrate the worst holiday of all but also poisoning the children.
I went to her teacher at lunchtime hoping to have her tell me that candy was barred from the Valentine's envelopes and that they were refusing to promote the Cadbury lifestyle but I had no luck. The teacher was happy to take candy and it looks like all kinds of kids got the same sort of thing Elli did and they will all be celebrating Valentine's Day at school with a deluge of high fructose corn syrup. These sorts of events leave me really stretching for an answer that works for everyone; I want to communicate to Elli how crappy this event is without leaving her miserable because she is singled out as the one kid who didn't give anyone else cards.
"My Daddy hates Valentine's Day and shouted lots of incomprehensible things about environmentalism and Type 2 Diabetes... that is why none of you get cards or candy from me."
I just don't think that is going to fly in Kindergarten. I think avoiding this holiday really needs to be supported by the school because when they send around the class lists and make sure to constantly remind the children to bring in their Valentine's gifts they really put the parents in a bind if they don't support it. Not that I particularly expect the school to back me up on this one of course, but I can dream.
There you go, my yearly rant. If you want something on the same topic that is funny instead of a vitriol infused diatribe then I suggest watching this:
One more holiday to look forward to hating when my daughter gets old enough for me to hate it.
ReplyDelete