“Valentine’s Day is such a scam, I need to spend so much money on my girlfriend and for what?”
“I think Valentine’s Day is stupid, it just makes single people feel worse about the fact that they’re alone.”
“I find it so wonderful that we have a day to show appreciation to the people we love, more than we normally would.”
These are some of the general opinions people have about Valentine’s Day, and it brings up the questions: Should we be celebrating it at all? Is it a stupid commercial holiday that should be abolished? Should we celebrate it in all its might? Here’s what I believe is the best solution to how to handle Valentine’s Day.
What is it about?
As a marketer, I like to break things down to their core, to then rebuild with improvements. If we break down Valentine’s Day to its core, we find love. According to infoplease.com, the holiday roots from a Roman festival called Lupercalia, which celebrated fertility. Now if we look up the definition of fertility, according to Google it’s “the ability to conceive children or young.” So, if we take a step back and look at this from another perspective, we can see this holiday was based on the ability to start a family. At the root of starting a family we find love: love between those wanting to start a family, and love between the individuals in the family.
Today, our definition of family has altered from the traditional sense: a group of individuals related by blood. We now consider family to be those near to us, no matter if they are related or not. Family can be your sister, your boyfriend, your grandmother or your dad’s best friend, it doesn’t really matter anymore what your blood type is or if an individual is married to a member with your last name.
So, if we cut out all the commercialization and the expectations around this holiday, we find that Valentine’s Day is about love, but more specifically love between any and all individuals you consider family.
Should we celebrate it?
Valentine’s Day needs to be rebranded as a day simply about love. Love for our partner, love for our parents, or love for our friends. This way no one would feel ashamed of being single, and no one would make those who are happily involved feel bad. I believe Valentine’s Day should be celebrated, but in a way which embraces everyone from young children to young lovers to single parents. We live in such a fast-paced world today, and it’s really a problem that we don’t take enough time to show affection to the people we love, so we should take full advantage of this opportunity.
Rather than Valentine’s Day being a big commercial trap where you have to get your significant other some expensive gift, just make sure you leave the day open to spend time with someone you love. The expensive gifts and dinners are so unnecessary! Just a cute card with some cinnamon hearts can go a long way, or even just cooking dinner for a change.
You may find all your friends prioritizing their boyfriends or girlfriends this day, and if you’re single that can be frustrating and make you feel even more alone. But in this case, what’s important is that instead of feeling sad, you take this time to show someone you love some affection, even if that person is you. Do that facemask you’ve been wanting to try, or watch that movie you’ve been dying to see. Or, you can spend this day with someone else you love who may not be a boyfriend or girlfriend, like your mom, your sister or your cousin!
Love is wonderful, and there is nothing wrong in celebrating your love for someone. Valentine’s Day has great potential to be a special day everyone can celebrate, regardless of your relationship status. However, society does need to change its expectations and the commercialization of this day in order for this to happen, and we have the power to initiate this.