My take on the manufactured holiday that is today...
Valentine, the patron saint of February 14th, had his head lopped off on that date by the Roman government in 270 A.D., which I am sure would put off at least some people from celebrating the date as a holiday espousing romantic love.
However, we’ve been conditioned—and I for one would really like to know exactly who to blame—to make a big deal of the date, so we men blow wads of money on flowers that are brown in a few days, candy our significant other will eat and gain weight that they complain to us about, and stuffed animals that sit somewhere in the house (or more likely in a closet) collecting dust.
Of course, there’s always jewelry and lingerie, but unless you’re married to the girl (or very soon planning to be), neither of these are advisable, as jewelry will, in all probability, empty your savings account and lingerie may likely be misinterpreted, especially if you’re only on your second date.
In Medieval times, small gifts were exchanged between nobles and their ladies. In the Victorian era, Valentine’s Day grew as a holiday as the notion of romantic love grew in society.
It is only in the last decade or two, however, that the date has become big business. The Hallmarks, Gunds, Tiffany’s and Victoria’s Secrets of the world have convinced us that unless we lavish our loved ones with consumer goods—the more expensive the better—we really don’t give a hoot about them.
And we, gullible sheep that we are, swallow this Madison Avenue tripe without a second thought.
My wife and I don’t make a big deal of Valentine’s Day. February is a busy month for us anyway with our anniversary and several birthdays, so we already have an incentive to keep the insanity of spending to a minimum. However, even if we didn’t have all of these events going on, we wouldn’t do much for the holiday. I don’t need a particular day of the year to tell my love that I do, in fact, love her. I’m supposed to be doing that every day anyway.
So, my advice to everyone is to go make a small card yourself (like we did as kids), give it and forget about the rest of this nonsense. After all, we’re just recovering from the madness of all the money we spent on Christmas.