Revising Valentine’s Day Expectations
In third grade, I spent hours meticulously creating personalized valentines for each person in my class. I made paper dolls and cut out hearts and bits of lace to attach to my cards, only to receive corny store bought cards from my class mates with messages like “You rock my world” and “You have a pizza my heart”. Why did we participate in exchanging these cards with our classmates? These cards were an expression of hollow sentiments to classmates we were not even friends with, let alone in love with.
Valentine’s Day has lost its original meaning of celebrating romantic bonds. It has become a tradition around the US for school-aged children to give their friends Valentines, often cards with silly puns and cheap candy. Instead, Valentine’s Day used to just be celebrated by people in love and expressing those sentiments to one another.
However, with Hallmark’s commercialization, this holiday is now celebrated among friends, classmates and colleagues, losing all fundamental significance. Hallmark makes giving Valentine’s Day cards easy and effortless, providing pre-written sentiments and illustrations. Mass-produced cards are nowhere near as charming as a handmade gift for a significant other on Valentine’s day, with their generic sayings. Truly sentimental cards include words from the
heart written by the giver, not by some Hallmark card writer.
People in relationships are expected to make grand romantic gestures of candle-lit dinners, 5ft teddy bears and heart-shaped chocolate boxes. Returning this holiday to its original character would include more heart-felt exchanges of love and appreciation.
Valentine’s Day’s origins have become disputed, but it was always celebrated as a day for the appreciation of romantic love, not an expression of friendship. Some origin myths say that Saint Valentine was a priest during the Roman Empire who performed secret marriages at a time when the emperor outlawed the marriage of young men. Other legends say he was a man jailed for helping persecuted Christians escape prison, and exchanged love letters, ‘valentines’, with the jailer’s daughter. Regardless of origins, the holiday has evolved over the centuries to acknowledge all types of love, not just romance as it was intended to.
Whether it be with big romantic gestures, or a small handmade card, Valentine’s Day is all about celebrating love with your significant other and appreciating time spent in one another’s company.
