Valentine's Day Guilt

Valentine's day started with a load of guilt - my 6 year old son 'reminded' me right on time that we had totally forgotten about the 'little valentine gifts' we have to give his classmates. Oh God! I scolded him for not reminding earlier when we were spending 1.5 days of snow filled 'no-school' days! Both B and I were feeling guilty about sending him to school without the gifts for other kids.

I had to go to work on time today. The thought of going to Walmart and picking tiny valentine cards and goodies and making 21 pouches of goodies 8AM in the morning petrified me. There was no way I could do that. Guilt pangs engulfed me for not having prepared for this moment. Should have shopped on the weekend and packed things into pouches! Whoever thought of this as a task, I totally missed it..now my son will have to suffer!

What if he is the only one to not take goodies in the whole class? I imagined the worst. In front of everyone, what if the teacher calls out 'OK, now is the time for Mr.Nikhil to present his bag of valentine goodies to his classmates'. ..and poor boy stands shy and embarrassed!

Who made these customs I dont know. I still wonder what is the value added to the kids' life because of this. Every kid gets a bunch of such goody bags which they bring home, dump on the table, frantically open this and that , and then totally forget about them. If you are smart, you would not spend too much money and time on those things, coz we all know how shortlived their excitement is. I don't think when I grew up there was any such custom. I feel good for my parents for not having to do such things.

P.S However, I managed to think up an idea of making some snack packs and MIL and B pulled it together. We did not want Nikhil to feel isolated by any chance, so the gifts were delivered to him on time at school by B. Dont want him to miss out on any fun the kids might be getting out of it.