How To Change Up The ‘Love’ Celebration On Valentine’s Day

Of all the big holidays celebrated, Valentine’s Day is my least favorite. Perhaps this sounds a bit jaded, but I don’t think I’m the only one who thinks this way. After all, it’s supposed to be a day to show your romantic love and admiration, right? If this is true why is it a holiday so many people love to hate?

Despite a poll which suggest a 4% decrease in people celebrating Valentine’s Day, according to Business Insider February 12, 2019, Americans were predicted to spend over $20.7 billion dollars on candy hearts, chocolates, cards, flowers and jewelry. This is an increase in spending from the one prior, all to express love’s admiration.

For a holiday derived from the vestiges of the Roman festival of Lupercalia, a fertility rite which included whipping women with animal entrails, then pairing them off with men by lottery to the brutal martyrdom of Saint Valentine for having secretly married couples to spare the husbands from war, how in the heck did this dark, violent origin evolve into the celebration of love we know today?

The Pressure Goes Back To Elementary School

Remember your own Valentine’s Day origin? Go back to elementary school and the pressures of making that perfect Valentine’s box. After all your hard work, were you the kid who received one or two, maybe no Valentine cards? Was it because your Valentine box just wasn’t worthy? It wasn’t your fault.  

Maybe your parent’s were working a second shift that evening and couldn’t help you with the project, or maybe you just weren’t that artistic.

Perhaps you grew up in a family on a tight budget and had to prioritize putting food on the table or paying the heating bill instead of buying the necessary construction paper, markers and cards. Maybe you weren’t that popular.

I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that some of you might consider me a bit cynic and not much of a romantic. This would not be true. I am steeply-vested in the mythical notion that though I toil, someday my prince will come. And I will live, happily ever after.

My Pollyanna viewpoint on this construct has matured with age, but it still holds some validity. Over the years, I’ve met plenty of dour Aunt Polly’s who have tried to wise me up to the ways of the world. At times, I have become very much like the disheartened town folk who challenged cheerful Pollyanna’s upbeat attitude in the ways of love.

Despite my own trials, I still maintain a sense of romantic love. I just don’t agree with the current cultural practices surrounding a specific calendar day really captures that essence. To me, it’s used as another excuse to separates the, “have’s,” from the have not’s.”

How To Show Love On Valentine’s Day

In a world where the lack of diversity, equity, inclusion and various “isms” are an everyday manifestation, perhaps it’s time to look at ways in which we could change up the love.

What if, instead of responding to commercials that persuade us into spending money we don’t have, we celebrated the day of love by reaching out to someone who doesn’t feel loved? It could be someone close to us, but it could also be a stranger.

We could volunteer at a food shelter, or visit someone infirmed. We could spend a day in a classroom with a child who suffer from anxiety, fear, and exclusion due to a host of emotional and mental health concerns impeding them from interacting socially and bridge the gap to include them. For those who are single, what if we focused the day on self-love and self-appreciation?

I am not professing there is a right or wrong way to celebrate Valentine’s Day. These are simply musings on the concepts of love.  However you choose to spend Valentine’s Day, I hope your is a day filled with the countless acts of love we demonstrate to our significant other, family, and friend’s in our day to day life.

It is a blessing to let them know how much we love and appreciate them. To all my blog readers, I count you as a blessing and you are all my Valentine!