From a young age we in America have it ingrained in our heads that Valentines day is a day of love and we MUST give gifts to people of the other gender. The boys are instructed that they have to give gifts and women are raised expecting to be lavishly given gifts on this day. If the man forgets to give a gift, or if said gift is found lacking in any way, then he will quickly be banished to the doghouse until the women decides her man's punishment is over. This could be a matter of days or even years. It is for this reason that I am happy that Melissa informed me before our 1st Valentines Day that I better not give her anything, a tradition I have continued since then. Hopefully I can also pass this on to my children as well.
I have a question though, why do we do this? Why are we forced into this over-commercialized holiday in the hopes that it can bring satisfaction and happiness to our Significant other? Should we not instead shower gifts on our spouses at random times throughout the year? It certainly would be cheaper on our checking account if we did.
Secondly, St. Valentine was one of several martyr's named Valentine who were all killed for the cause of Christ. Why don't we talk about that on Valentines Day? Espouse the principle of standing for your convictions and what you believe in even if it means death. It seems to me that is the message we should be talking about rather than this blatantly commercialized {pink} holiday.
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I believe St. Valentine was killed because the box of chocolates he gave his lady had a few missing. He was hungry on the long journey and so he helped himself. Bad decision. She had him killed and later, feeling remorse, claimed it was for religious reasons.
ReplyDeleteThe wonderful Hallmark Holiday. We don't do anything for it either.