valentine's day

I think it was my sister who asked the question, "When did Valentines day turn into Halloween?". I couldn't agree more. Last year at Valentines day I was shocked to realize that Devin was the only kid in his preschool class who handed out only paper valentines. No candy in special Valentines Day packaging, no valentines with the special cut-out to hold a lollipop, not even the candy hearts with the little sayings on them. He had Pirates of the Caribbean paper valentines, and I thought they were cool since they came with tattoos. Man, was I out of the loop.
This year, Alex's teacher asked that we all bring in non-food items for the kids to have a "goody bag" for Valentine's Day. One of the moms expressed her disappointment that he kid would miss out on all the good candy and fun associated with Valentine's Day, but I was thrilled. When we were kids, Valentine's Day had little to do with candy. My parents would give us each a small heart-shaped box of candy, but we never got candy from all our friends. The excitement was around which cool valentine your good friends selected for you. We would get the occasional candy hearts with sayings on them, but no one really ever ate them; I just read them to see if any cute boys gave me one that said "Be Mine" or "You're Cute".
However, for today's valentine exchange the kids were instructed not to put names in the 'To:' field, so that they could simply drop a valentine from each kid in each kids bag. Alex has picked specific valentines for all his buddies, but couldn't give them out that way, and Devin wound up getting two of his own valentines in his collection bag. So much for seeing if your friends picked good valentines for you, and forget about a note from a potential crush!
So when did Valentine's Day become all about the candy and not about a nice note from someone who cares about you? I'm not sure, but this is one case where I miss the way things were.