It’s great to change things up and do things away from these silly Hallmark holidays. I dislike them much, and I for the most part don’t participate in them unless it’s something for my son. There’s a lot of fun doing it randomly on like April 19th or something instead of these silly days.
Glad you got to surprise small steps too! It’s fun when they get to experience things like that on occasions so that they get to have some fun but not expect it every year.
Doing it for the kids is a bit different, but even then I tend to make it less about a day, and move the days around a bit but use it to mark the occasion. Like celebrating a birthday a week before or after. We mark the day of course, but I would like to have her a little less "time sensitive" to the world. "Noon" used to be when the sun was highest in the sky kind of thing.
Glad you got to surprise small steps too!
She was pretty happy with it. But, she was really happy at being able to plan the surprise :)