The Monthly Debate: Valentine's Day - "too commercial" or "I love it"

[Priscilla]

So, what do you think? Is Valentine's day too commercialized, a holiday strictly for the card/candy/flower/stuffed animal companies? Or, is it still a time to remind your sweetheart just how much you love them?

I'll weigh in first. My husband and I exchange silly cards, but there's no gift giving. We tell each other "I love you" at random times through out the year, but I see nothing wrong with a special day for an extra big hug and kiss! ;) And that's my start off two cents! :D

[C_ris]

It is now too commericial. The idea is good, but not the practice.

[Mausey]

I'm over 40 and my grandmother still sends me a cute little valentine in the mail every year. :heart: It is too commercial and for most part it's just another excuse to eat chocolates. :D

[Jeffrey555]

The BOY is 15 now and refuses to get his mother a valentine card.

I got her a book, candy and a funny card.

We will just see who makes out better.

[Apocalypse]

A load of nonsense ;) ATM, Oldrider and I move house on that weekend :roll: I think we bought ourselves a TV last year....
We tell eachother 'I love you' all the time and I don't need an excuse to be nice to him! :laugh:

[Tony]

Yeah it's comercial.....yeah it's expensive.....but I can just imagine your ladies faces if your guys didn't get you a card! :D
Barb and I don't do anything "special", we exchange cards and "token" gifts *(this year I've bought Barb an Elvis CD, the woman's musical taste is still crap, even after 22 years of my trying to educate her to better things! ;) )* and there'll be a bunch of flowers on the day, too.
Us guys don't always say "dearest, I love you" it as often as we should, so it's a good excuse to do so and then say, "well, it's expected, isn't it?" ;)
I'll shut up now, before I give away any more "male" secrets! :D

[-H-]

...I'll shut up now, before I give away any more "male" secrets! :D

Traitor!!!!

You can't give away "male" secrets !!!! its against the male rules !!!! (which are also secrets .... er oops :erm: )

;)

Personaly i much prefer Pancake day (feb 8th) :bouncy: :bouncy: :bouncy:
Valentines day really is much to comercialized .. although its a good excuse for snuggles and chocolate ..... not that i ever need an excuse to demand my snuggles and chocolate :ok:

[Anneli]

I think there's a transatlantic difference in this one :D

I remember when Hans and I were running the Casting Polls and he created a terrific graphic for the Valentine Poll, very romantic, slightly sensual, definitely emotive ;) Then it was pointed out to us by the then owner that in the US Valentines don't necessarily have the same connotations as they do in the UK :D

Apparently, in the US it's quite normal to send a Valentine to a parent, a relative, or a friend of the same sex. If you did that here you'd think they were making a pass at you :eek:

So we had to tone it down to skip the sexual frisson that the picture might cause ;)

As for too commercialised, I agree 100%. It's an excuse for companies to make money, and for restaurants to serve up unappealing, cold food at exorbitant prices :D

But hey, if it's the only way to persuade the other 50% of the human race to say the magic words, then I'm all in favour :fiend: :ok:

[Priscilla]

Magic words?! There are magic words! Why didn't someone tell me! Now I gotta go back 25 years and start all over again! :irked: Nah, maybe not. The first 25 have been darn good just the way they are! :heartbeat

(Say, those magic words wouldn't happen to be: "I'll get the check" would they?! :devil: ) :redfruit:

[AidansMom]

I HATE Valentine's Day. I hated it as a kid, I hated it when I was single, and I hate it as a married adult -- especially since I have children!

My kids are off school on Monday (teacher inservice) so the "Valentine's Day Parties" are on Friday. Let's see... Kaity needs 40 cards for her classmates; Rowan needs 40 cards for his classmates; oh yes, and Aidan needs 47 cards for his classmates... So I need to buy 127 valentines day cards, sit and have my 5, 8, and 9 year old sign 40 (or more) cards, then write their classmate's name on the envelope, oh yes, and candy is expected to go with these cards too! I'm cheating this year. I'm going to print labels for the envelopes and then print (on clear labels) Kaitlyn M. (40x), Rowan M. (40x), and Aidan M. (47x) so they just have to stick the signature on the card, put it in the envelope, put the label on, and tape on a sucker.

Blech!! It's February 14th for goddess sake. So what!?! My husband loves me, I love him. No gifts, no chocolate, no candy, no cards. It's just another day -- besides I'll have class until 9 pm that night.

AidansMom

[Anneli]

I think AidansMom just aptly proved my points about a transatlantic difference concerning Valentine's Day :D :bow: ;)

[AidansMom]

I think AidansMom just aptly proved my points about a transatlantic difference concerning Valentine's Day :D :bow: ;)

Ah, but in Kindergarten, 2nd grade, and 4th grade we can't allow anyone to have hurt feelings over not getting a "Valentine's Day card" from someone else in the class. No popularity voting allowed here. We're DEMOCRATIC -- we hate everyone equally! So it really becomes totally meaningless and all the kids see is that I got candy from everyone else in the class and I gave candy to everyone else. There is NO emotion attached to Valentine's Day.

Honestly, only my daughter (at nearly 10) would possibly have what I would consider feelings toward a classmate that would go beyond simple friendship. While my older son likes many of the girls in his class, they're simply mates -- nothing more. He's never been one of those "oh ick, girls have cooties" type of kids; he treats the boys and the girls the same.

<rant mode>While I understand that from a child's perspective this is great -- all the candy and pretty cards and you can read ANYTHING you want into them because most are so plain and innocuous that it's just boring. [I did see a cute card on-line with a whale asking "Whale you be my Valentine?", but most were trite and banal.] From a parent's perspective, this is a financial imposition, especially when you have three or more children. In this neighborhood, we're a small family with only Mom, Dad, and three children. The "average" family around here has Mom, Dad, Grandmother, Grandfather, and four or five children living in a 3 or 4 bedroom 2 bathroom house. I know of one family a few doors down from us living in a 3 bedroom 1 bathroom house with Mom, Dad, and seven kids. Try to imagine buying enough valentine's day cards for seven kids classes!! I think they should ban celebrations where the children are required to give cards/gifts to everyone else in the class. If it were a simple everyone brings an unlabeled wrapped gift, each gift is tagged with a number and students draw numbers, I would have less of an issue with it. Each child gives one gift and each child gets one gift. However, it really gets me when the teachers send home the list of students in the class (first & last names) and ask you to: "sit down with your child and point out the upper and lower letters as they write their classmates names on the cards"! I don't have the TIME to sit with Aidan, then Rowan, and then Kaitlyn to do 127 cards! I'm in school full time as a graduate student, I work full time, and I try to spend SOME time with my kids. I barely see my kids on Monday and Tuesday because of that -- I'm NOT giving up my Wednesday & Thursday evenings to do stupid Valentine's Day cards for Friday! (plus, we have scouting on Wednesday and I have a theatre show to see on Thursday)</rant>

AidansMom

[NeouofPern]

Valentine's Day is much too commercialized. Do you need a holiday to celebrate love? No. I mean sure, it's a terrific excuse to propose to someone and such, but really. It's now just a Hallmark holiday

[AnnMarie]

I think I posted this already, but... it's a good indication of what I think.




The Truth About Valentine’s Day


Hearts and flowers and Cupid’s bow
Candy and cards ~ Gads, what a show!
Everywhere you turn, it’s all pink and red.
Should I remind you Valentine is dead?

For starters, he was no erotic lover
Of woman or of man
And he stole the day from Juno!
Yup, that’s were it all began.

The lovers and the unions
Belonged to Juno first
The Church gave the day to Valentine:
You decide what’s worse.

A dirty old man leaves a note
For a tender maiden fair
On the morning the emperor ordered
His shoulders be chopped bare

Then a Catholic Bishop
Trying to end the Pagan Way
Announces the start of Lupercalia
Is now St Valentine’s Day!

And THEN, in 1840
One enterprising miss
Commercialized the greetings
Leaving us with this!

A yearly celebration
Of earthy, joyful sex
Became a Hallmark top-seller
And gods know what is next.

So Valentine the Martyr
And Esther Lowland, entrepreneur
Have changed the sex to candy~
What the blazes for?

[Hans]

Far too commercial and I abhor it. You should things "they" want you to do on Vday occasionally and far more often (when your dear one(s) least expect it) and against prices that will allow you to indeed do it far more often... ;)