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By James Kinneen
Hometown Weekly Reporter
Like millions of lonely, dateless singles around the country, on Valentine’s Day, the kids of Needham were eating their feelings.
But there were no pints of ice cream, bottles of wine or tissues filled with tears at the Needham Library’s “Eat Your Feelings” event, just kids, sugar cookies, frosting, and lots of laughter.
“Eat Your Feelings” was the cleverly-titled emoji-decorating event put on by Erin Bassett, Needham Library’s reference librarian and young adult specialist. Bassett explained that “lots of people have Valentine’s Day forced on them,” and that on the holiday, “hearts are overdone.”
Talia from Needham holds up one of the cookies she made.
So instead of the typical holiday fare, she provided the students with sugar cookies that had the outlines of the most popular emojis, including the famed poop emoji. The kids were then provided with confetti sprinkles, frosting, and other decorating tools to create their own emoji cookies.
While Bassett felt the emojis were better than the typical hearts that the kids had likely made in school already, Talia, a fifth grader from Needham, said that while the event was fun, whether the cookies were emojis, hearts or something else, she still would have gone to the event.
“I mean, I still would’ve come, because it’s sugar,” she declared.
Talia made a white rose, while her sister, third grader Audrey, made a “cool guy with a goatee,” because goatees are apparently cool again with the younger generation.
A few kids opted to eat the sugar cookies plain, because they didn’t have the heart to eat something into which they had put so much time and effort. Bassett offered the children juices and water to wash the cookies down, but devastatingly left the milk she had planned to bring at her house. The kids didn’t need any emojis to convey that was disappointing.
Third grader Audrey’s “cool guy with a goatee.”
Still, with the internet and social media forcing kids to grow up quicker than ever, the Needham provided some childish fun rather than a grand romantic gesture. And whether or not you think hearts are overdone, Valentine’s Day is too commercialized, or that it’s gross to decorate a poop emoji, you can’t deny the kids were having a great time with their cookies.
It would be hard for them not to.
After all, it’s sugar.
