[Disclaimer: I just re-read this post, and it is quite contradictory. Please don't ask me to clarify. If you ask me how I feel about holiday marketing, expect to have to listen to me for a while. If you ask me if I buy gifts for most holidays, I'll answer yes. If you ask why, I'll say I don't know. This is a very conflicting matter for me, and I don't expect it to get cleared up any time soon. So please, just take this at face value and don't ask me to engage in any philosophical conversation about it. Maybe next year I'll have a better answer.]
Ahhh, Valentine's Day. A day that didn't go so well last year, and a day I've sort of been dreading this year. I can remember back in high school and college, people I knew used to call Valentine's Day "Black (day of the week)." One year, in college, it was Black Friday to a good friend. He hated Valentine's Day. Hated pretty much everything about it, I think. He was miserable on "Black Friday" and was sure to tell everyone that Valentine's Day was a joke. He, of course, didn't have a girlfriend at the time. He's now married, with a daughter. I wonder if his viewpoint on it has changed.
I've always enjoyed Valentine's Day. It was never an over-the-top-get-excited-about-it kind of holiday, but it was always nice to get chocolates and cards and jewelry, or whatever else I got. And it was nice to give them, too. I have a bad habit of letting special occasions creep up on me. I know it's coming, but I don't think far enough ahead to be able to get "the perfect gift." Sometimes I have come across as a slacker, or that I didn't care. That's not the case at all. Sometimes my brain just gets stuck in it's every day routine and I basically just run out of time to get that really special something before I realize what's happened. And other times, rather than searching to buy something, I would make things. I like doing that... a lot. And it always makes me feel good to give a handmade gift to someone, no matter what the occasion. I think handmade gifts are important. It means quite a lot to me when someone makes a gift, just for me.
Like so many other holidays, I've grown tired of Valentine's Day. I've grown extremely weary of the marketing associated with it. We've commercialized love and all it's glory, a day meant to honor dead souls, the birth and then the resurrection of Jesus, a day honoring and named for a patron Saint of Ireland... and so on. I'm kind of surprised there haven't been any Martin Luther King Jr. bobbleheads in stores with some corny recorded message about how we should all be friends. It sickens me how our society has commercialized the meaning out of just about everything. While in the store today (yes, buying Valentine gifts), I noticed a box of SweetHeart candies, labeled "Classroom Exchange." Each individual package contained 5 hearts, all different flavors, and each with a different message: "True love, "First kiss," "Let's kiss," "Puppy love," or "You rock." Now, let's think about this. How old are kids that do classroom Valentine exchanges? My oldest is in 4th grade, and he told me Valentines were optional this year. So, essentially let's assume that kids under 10 exchange Valentines in their school classroom. Let's kiss? True love? Really!?!? I know, most people laugh and just eat the candy, but who's bright idea was it to put those particular sayings on candies that are exchanged within the under 10 crowd?
The other day, my daughter and I got talking about Valentine's Day and she said, "I can't wait to see what my brothers get me for Valentine's Day!" AAAGGGHHH!! It's not Christmas! I can't afford to buy everyone in the family a gift for every single holiday that comes across the calendar. I'm still paying off the Christmas gifts! I tried to explain that we don't have to exchange gifts with everyone. Despite that, I still bought each of the kids a small, very inexpensive box of chocolates, and something for them to give to their Dad.
I don't expect to get anything for Valentine's Day this year, and that is perfectly acceptable to me. Like I just said, I've played into the whole commercialism of it enough myself. To some couples Valentine's Day has a deeper significance, and it is nice to get gifts from a loved one, especially a spouse or partner. I realize that I will never be able to single-handedly eliminate Valentine's and all it's marketing revenue, even if I really wanted to. So, I guess I'll just stick to the dollar aisle in Wal-Mart and get something small for the kids, while treasuring the handmade cards they bring to me. Those are the best gifts I could ever get.
What happened to your blog from the 15th? I was going to comment on it.
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