Really only the masquerading part.
Even Conservative Jews (esp the more observant ones) don’t. None of the Jewish people I knew who chose not to celebrate v day were orthodox.
Huh. Didn’t realize that had maken it into the Incredibles. First attribution of a similar statement I’ve seen was to Kierkegaard, who of 19th Century, officially Lutheran but largely secular Copenhagen, said: “When everyone is a Christian, no one is a Christian.” Looks like one of those Pixar writers got some use out of his pricey liberal arts degree!
I would guess his parents are either religious, or highly secular and prefer not to involve their child in commerical religious holidays.
We have separation of church and state here. Public schools are not allowed to sponsor or organize any kind of explict Christmas activities (though they sometimes do more generic, non-religious “winter” events). If kids want to give each other Christmas cards, they can, I suppose, but they wouldn’t do it in class, and the school wouldn’t have anything to do with it.
It’s not something I’ve ever heard of kids doing in the US, though. Even in private Christian schools, I’ve never heard of kids giving each other Christmas cards. Gifts, maybe, between kids who are dating, but no casual card exchanges.
The Valentine’s Day thing is very innocuous. Every kid gives every other kid a card, and usually some candy. Valentine’s Day for kids is really more about candy than anything else. It has no romantic connotations for kids here. Boys give cards to boys, and girls give them to girls.
That second speculation seems weird to me. Valentine’s Day as a commercial holiday is completely non-religious. It’s all about sex, romance and spending money, with friendship and family affection also sort of brought under the V-Day umbrella in the American tradition.
In fact, even in church contexts I’ve never heard of any religious recognition of Valentine’s Day. I have no idea how one would even go about celebrating it religiously. “Let Jesus be your valentine”? Gross.*
Or maybe you just mean that some secular people are against involvement in commercial or religious holidays. They wouldn’t participate in something religious because it’s against their secular beliefs, but they also object to popular secular traditions fostered by businesses to get people to spend money. That makes more sense to me, although I don’t personally know any people who would take that view to the extent of not letting their 7-year-old participate in a school valentine exchange.
*Actually, I got curious, so I went looking, and now I am punished. For all your emetic needs: Valentine’s Day With Jesus.
This is a pretty typical valentine for kids. As you can see, it comes in a pack of 34 (one for each member of the class), and pretty much fails entirely in the romance department.
I grew up in the 70s and it was the same thing here. It was cheap cards your mother bought you and you gave everyone in the class a card? Why? Because you’re mother got 50 of them for a buck so why not?
JW use their individual conscious, when celebrating holidays. For instance on birthday’s my co-worker wouldn’t participate in the birthday cake we’d give someone on her/his birthday. She wouldn’t sing or eat any of the cake.
But as I pointed out to her, she takes the money on Christmas and other holidays without working for it. “Well, I can’t come into work, the office is closed so I have no choice” was her reply. I said, “Well you can donate it to your church?” She didn’t seem to like that answer 
If you look hard enough you can always stretch a point to find a reason for why you do or don’t do things
Marxxx, how do you know she didn’t donate it to her church? My JW co-worker wouldn’t participate in any holidays; she wouldn’t even wear red on Valentine’s Day when somebody sent an e-mail saying “Hey, let’s all wear red on Valentine’s Day!” But she was extremely gracious and if an unknowing part-time newbie put a bag of Conversation Hearts on her desk, she wouldn’t throw them out or give a lecture. She’d just say “Thank you, sweetie!” with a smile and later put the candy in the employee lounge. Not every JW is a hypocrite; some just follow their faith quietly.
To clarify, this is a policy that has changed over the years. When I was 7 back in the 1950s, public schools made celebrating Christmas a big deal even in a distract like mine where no prayers were ever said, unlike schools in most of the South at that time.
The Jewish kids - all orthodox: if there were any other congregations around at the time they were in the suburbs cultural light years away from our inner city school that drew from the Jewish “ghetto” - took part to a certain extent in Christmas events - singing carols and making posters or whatever. I’m don’t remember individual cards, though. Most were uncomfortable at best with the practice. It shunned and demeaned.
Valentine’s Day was different. Everybody made cards and sent them and did hearts and candy and stuff and I never remember a single word being said by anyone, even the kids who eventually went to Yeshiva University. There was zero connection made to Valentine being a saint or the holiday having religious roots.
It was as secular as Thanksgiving, which was purely patriotic, celebrating the founding of America, exactly the same as Columbus Day but with more food. Same with Memorial Day and the Fourth of July and Washington’s and Lincoln’s Birthdays, separate holidays then.
Not celebrating Christmas or Easter is obvious. Not celebrating Valentine’s Day is more of a stretch but I can see that like Halloween it has religious roots, although Halloween was another holiday celebrated as completely secular by everyone. Thanksgiving is a possibility, given the Puritan heritage it sprang from, but it’s no longer anything other than another excuse to eat food with no higher connotations than that in our society.
What is the JW policy toward all those other holidays? What is a pagan holiday? How does that differ from a national holiday? Are individuals allowed to be celebrated? What about Martin Luther King Day? Arbor Day? Is New Year’s a holiday? What does it even mean to “celebrate”? I don’t understand what the line of distinction falls.
Bringing enough Valentine cards and candy for everyone in my class (so as not to show favorites) was perhaps not mandatory, but absolutely essential in my Catholic grade school. There was even time allocated to exchange all the cards at the end of the day in place of normal school activities. By 4th grade or so we were “too cool” to do that anymore…but candy was still welcome.
I remember making “mailboxes” in art class (old tissue boxes recovered with paper and the like) and we would leave them on our desks for the other kids to drop cards into…It was fun. Aw, simpler times. 
Oh. Sour grapes, huh? That’s a sad one.
For all of you poo-pooing the new conversation hearts…have you tried them? They are deeeelicious!
If they piss you off, buy some so you can eat them ironically or something. It’ll be worth hating yourself over
[perks up] Really? Okay, maybe I’ll try some. [/perks up] …but I liked the old ones… 
I checked with my sister about the practice at my nieces’ school. It’s the same as that described by Aspidistra. The school doesn’t get involved in outside social events. My nieces’ birthday parties are generally fairly small affairs - 10 guests would usually be the maximum. So the majority of the class won’t be invited. And those that aren’t invited just have to get over it.
My wife and I received a Valentine’s card from her parents today (they’re not going to be back from the Dominican by V-day), addressed ‘To Daughter and “Son”’ - I wasn’t even aware there was a market for V-day cards for your grown children, much less your grown daughter and son-in-law. We had a good laugh.
Ok, I’ve got more questions about this interesting foreign cultural practise now
If it’s not considered a “romance” thing for kids, but is for adults, I’m assuming the kids cards go to both sexes indiscriminately? So where’s the changeover? Do they still keep doing this in middle school and high school, or does the school back out at that point and go to a “you organise it yourself/sweethearts only” kind of deal?
Also, people who give Valentines in families … how does that work? If you give Valentines to siblings, is it irrespective of sex? Do you give Valentines to your Dad?
Middle schoolers typically don’t do Valentines. Although they will do valentine parties in school with little treats for everyone.
In high school we would give valentines to boyfriends/girlfriends. Sometimes the student council would sell carnations ahead of time that would get delivered to your homeroom on v-day- white for a friend, pink for an “I like” and red for something more serious.
Parents typically get valentines for teh kids (“you’re best son” deal) and I will get ones for my kids grandparents (my parents- “We love you grandma” deal). Kids often will get valentines for parents. It’s a symbol of affection, not romance.