My husband and I were walking through the store today and we passed a display of Valentines -- you know, the kind that school kids buy and exchange in the classroom. I paused and glanced them over, remembering how much I used to love holidays at school. (Husband is an inactive/faded JW; I was never one.) I made a comment about the cards and we kept walking.
A minute later, my husband told me that he actually used to get lots of Valentines in elementary school, even though he was a Witness. He never gave any, of course, but his friends and classmates always gave him one. I asked what he did with the cards, and he shrugged. He said that since he couldn't take them home -- his parents would have a fit, of course -- that he hid them in his desk at school under his books. He would look at them from time to time at school, and then at the end of the year, he would have to throw them away.
For some reason, his story just hit me, and (being the sap that I am) I got all teary-eyed right in the middle of the store. I could just picture him, seven or eight years old, sneaking a peek at a Valentine under his math book -- and how wrong it is that parents would forbid their child to receive a note of friendship from classmates. That he had to hide them. That he had to throw away those mementos before summer vacation. That it had to be a secret.
I just wanted to share that. Anyone else have any holiday stories from their days as a Dub child?
SLM