Valentine's Day: Give Your Man Some Chocolate

The Japanese love present-based holidays. Who can blame them? Presents are kind of fun.

Valentine's day here is all about hearts and chocolates and affection like you would expect, but the way it's done is a little different. Here, the men receive chocolates and gifts.

What's the woman's motivation to give chocolate (precious chocolate!) to men (who often don't appreciate it nearly as much)? Because the sentiment is reciprocated with interest on White Day.

White Day is a totally made up holiday in March to be the girl's equivalent of Valentine's Day. On that day, the men give women white gifts of a value two to three times as much as she spent on his Valentine's Day gifts. White chocolate, white lingerie, and marshmallows are the traditional gifts according to Wikipedia.

I was a bad wife and didn't get my husband flowers this year (I have in the past), but I did get him chocolates. In a Hello Kitty bag. I'm reasonably certain she's not flipping you off, but not completely.

When I presented it to him it had a tissue paper flower spilling out the top, but was otherwise just like this.

Inside, a modest treasure. I didn't go crazy, and not just because I wasn't aware of the threefold return on White Day until I looked it up this afternoon. Being my gift to him won't stop me from eating it, and I have precious little willpower when it comes to chocolate. It's better not to have a huge stockpile sitting around the house staring at me and calling my name.

The blue box just looked good. Apple brandy in chocolate? Sign me up! I have no idea what's in the box on the right because I can't read, but it should be chocolate and worth trying. The Reece's are pretty self-explanatory.


Happy Valentine's Day!