Saturday, February 14, 2009

Valentines Delivery

Just this morning I was telling my oldest son about Valentines Day when I was a girl. Growing up in the 70's in Orem Utah, Valentines Night was soooo fun. Almost more fun than Halloween night. Whatever happened to delivering valentines and treats to your neighbors and friends after dark?
We went to school and made the traditional valentine mail boxes made of construction paper and doilies, slopped together with thick paste. I still remember the taste. Ah, come on, we all tried it at least once! The paste was too tempting! We would swap valentines and eat sticky things like cupcakes with pink frosting. then we would walk home in the snow and dump our loot on the living room floor and start sorting. There would be a pile of valentines from the girls and another pile from the boys. Most of these were ripped up because i was embarrassed of the thought of stinky boys giving me valentines. Then we would count them and between friends compare numbers. Tiffany would always get more than me for some reason. She was always one grade ahead of me.
more cookies and valentines would be prepared for nighttime delivery. this is when the real fun began. We would leave our pretty Valentines on the doorsteps of beloved friends, ring the bell and RUN! Once we were home again we would peek out our window and try to spy on our valentines. Later in the evening mischief would begin. The older boys would always do the string trick. We would open the door, bend down to pick up the valentine and it would mysteriously fly away. Hidden laughter in the shaking trees would reveal their presence ending in snow flying in a sudden dash. The darkness would keep everyone anonymous. After one of these pranks I would leave it up to Kimmy and Brad to answer the door for the rest of the night. Valentines was always a late night. Even on a school night!
Happy Valentines Day!
consider yourself dingdongditched!

3 comments:

LaRae said...

Sounds like lots of fun! We never had such eventful Valentine's Days in Vegas. I have never heard of the string trick before - must be a Utah thing :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Anonymous said...

Eric and I told Haven all about the traditional ding donging on Valentine's Day. She wanted to do it this year. So we did! We only went to three houses (one of them being the Murdocks--your old house), but it was a lot of fun.

Grandma and Grandpa Clark said...

I remember doing all of that too but thought you were too young to have done such things. Your telling it brought make fun memories. Love you