Happy Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is a day to celebrate those you love, even in Japan.  Chocolate companies have been hard at work marketing their goods over here.  Everywhere you look there are chocolates for sale.  Train Stations have tables set up in concourses.  Convenience stores have chocolate at eye level right as you walk in the door.  Department stores have display after display of a variety of chocolate goodies.  It really is a day to celebrate chocolate!

February 14th is reserved for girls in Japan to tell boys that they care for them.  They buy chocolates for friends and coworkers.  Or they make chocolates for those they love, like boyfriends, husbands, or someone they have a crush on.  It was explained to me that the level of effort is equivalent to how much a girl likes a guy.

If it seems like the girl is doing all the work in this description, it is because she is doing everything.  Valentine's Day in Japan is all about the girl expressing her feelings.  Boys reciprocate one month later on White Day - a made up holiday where boys do all the purchasing/work and girls do all the receiving. 

Today my husband was gifted with a small box of chocolate cookies from his female coworkers.  They pooled their money and bought small boxes for each man in the office.  This is quite common in office settings and how I participated in the holiday 15 years ago when I worked at a school.

At the park, several moms baked cookies or cake and brought it to share amongst the moms.  A few treats were passed around between the kids, but not a single card passed hands.

And at home, I bought my son some Anpanman (a very popular anime character) chocolates and my husband a box of chocolates of various flavors, including tea, sake, and fruit.  I love my boys very, very much, but I wasn't about to make them chocolates and they didn't care either way.  They were just happy to enjoy nice chocolates.