I recently rediscovered my collection of Valentine's Day cards over the years. Believe it or not, the oldest cards in my collection are from my pre-kindergarten class! That's.... about 28-29 years ago 😱 As an adult (with my own pre-k age child!) it's easy to wonder why in the world I kept these. I actually know why in the world I kept these. Each of these cards stood out to me for a reason and that's precisely why I saved them.
1. Barbie
This first collection is comprised of Barbie valentine's. I was a huge Barbie fan once upon a time. Loved the clothes, accessories, and play sets, but was never a fan of the actual doll herself. I preferred stuffed animals. These three cards I kept precisely because I liked Barbie.
Barbie cards surprisingly have not gone out of style. They are still handed out in classrooms today in the year 2023. But these three? Vintage. Definitely vintage. The one on the left was my favorite.
2. Cute
The second category I saved was the cute category. Bears were my thing back in the day 🧸. They still kind of are, but I've been mostly converted to penguins 🐧.
3. Sparkly
I couldn't resist a sparkly card. And clearly, that is the only reason I kept these cards.
The top center was a power ranger card. If I turned it over, the card itself is very blasé. Literally the only reason I kept that card was for the pink power ranger sparkly heart sticker on the back. I don't remember who Todd is at all. Sorry.
On the bottom, we have N'Sync, Britney Spears, and someone doing an extreme sport. The actual sport is called skysurfing. I didn't even know that until I just looked it up...now...decades after receiving that card. Britney Spears was never my thing. I knew her by name but that was about it. Of all my mix CDs and music tracks, I had one song she wrote. I didn't even recognize her face in 5th grade when my bus driver showed me a picture. 🤷🏻♀️ N'Sync was also not my thing. Knew a couple of their songs...but never had one on any of my CDs.
4. Repeats
The only reason I kept these is because I had so many of the same/similar designs from multiple years. I guess the dogs are kind of cute, but I think I kept the duplicates from sheer chance of receiving so many of the same design.
5. Magic Eye
Magic Eye was a big fad when I was in school. I used to love checking out the books from the library and holding them really close to my face (and smelling all that library-book-weird-smell that some books from the library have) and then moving them further away until my eyes saw the 3-D image bulging from the page. It took me a long time to finally see my first one. You had to really master the eye focus as well as the speed to back the page from your face. But when you saw it, they were the coolest thing ever.
Turning these into Valentine's Day cards was pretty genius. I will say that the little ones on the cards never worked as well as the ones in the books.
6. Glow-in-the-Dark
Who doesn't love a cool glow-in-the-dark card? These just happen to be planets, which I don't particularly care for, but the glow-in-the-dark texture and feature was what captivated me. Luckily, these planets are still planets according to today's science.
Sadly, nobody's memorizing "My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas" anymore. Nine pizzas has just turned into nachos. Or if you're into Dr. Seuss, Mallory Valerie Emily Mickels Just Saved Up Nine Hundred Ninety Nine Nickels.
7. Teachers
Very rarely did we ever get cards from our teachers. I only saved three anyway from the 20+ teachers I had from pre-k until 5th grade.
The top card was from my 4th grade homeroom teacher. I wonder if she picked that card on purpose for me because she knew I excelled at math. I'll never know, but her handwriting was beautiful.
8. Friends
These three cards I actually kept because of the people who gave them to me. Nothing particular about the cards really appealed to me. I guess they do all have dogs in common, but that technically wasn't the reason why I kept them.
These three cards were given to me by three friends who meant a lot to me in my elementary school days. One of these girls was my "first friend." I don't remember how we met or became friends, but I remember being friends with her by 2nd grade. The second girl and I became friends in 2nd grade because we were in the same grade. She had skipped 1st grade so we ended up classmates. She moved the same year I did, except she moved out of state completely and I just transferred schools within the district. We reconnected in middle school/high school periodically but our lives had moved on to different places. I remember being friends with the third girl but I don't remember specific details of our friendship. I know we were on the same Destination Imagination team for at least one year. There may have been two but those memories are foggy.
9.
I honestly can't remember why I saved this card. The only reason I can think of is that it was one of the extras I had from one year. My mother wrote my name on this card so I'm assuming she must've written it on my other cards that year. As a parent now, my initial reaction would be, "Why in the world is the parent writing the child's name on her Valentine's Day cards?" And that reaction would be completely reasonable and expected. My four-year-old can write her name. I'm pretty sure I should have been able to write my own name 24+ times on little slips of paper.
But the reason why I will choose to keep this card now and forever is because it has my mother's handwriting on it. I'm glad she wrote my name on it instead of writing my name myself. As weird as it is, you don't think about these things until you think about these things. Had I been the child who had signed my own Valentine's Day cards, I wouldn't have this memento today.
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