I witnessed various people protesting the holiday yesterday and I just have to say this:
Do you refuse gifts of love on Christmas? Do you ask your loved ones not to celebrate your birthday? If your kids give you a mother’s day card, or your brother sends you a gift for Hanukah, do you return it? When grandparents send a little care package to grandkids for Halloween or Easter, should we exclaim that Hallmark made them do it? If you are single does that mean you are unloved? Do you have to spend money to demonstrate love? If you don’t want a card, chocolate, flowers or diamonds, does that mean you can’t participate in Valentine’s Day?
No. NO NO NO NO NO!!
Valentine’s Day is a day to celebrate love. Along with 364 other days in the year.
Enjoy it. Embrace it. Have fun with it.
Enjoy each other. Embrace each other. Have fun with each other.
Let’s add more days of showing love to the world to the calendar, instead of boycotting the ones we already have.
Blessed Little Things 
while i didn’t really protest valentine’s day, i did post on my blog how i wasn’t a big fan. mostly it’s because i really don’t like to receive gifts. most of the time, people are only buying gifts because they feel obligated not because they want to show their love or affection towards the receiver. i don’t refuse anything because that would just be downright rude but deep down inside when somebody hands me a gift, be it at christmas or valentine’s day, i cringe. “what kind of useless crap is this person handing me?” i know, i know, not a very nice thing to admit to thinking but it’s true. i am much more appreciative of acts of kindness than with pretty packages.
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Amen to this post Amy!! I’m with you! Some people just miss the point, but I think it’s more because media focuses more on ‘relationships’ rather than pure and simple love. Thank you!
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Amen to your last sentence! I feel the same way about Christmas, too. (And isn’t any excuse to go out to dinner instead of cooking a good one?)
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I couldn’t agree with you more Amy. There’s a young guy who works with me and he said his girlfriend doesn’t believe in Hallmark holidays. I told him he was far too young to be cynical and that love is something that deserves to be celebrated. You can boycott the cards, but certainly not the sentiment.
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It’s not that I object to the celebration of love. I think that’s great. I think love’s great. But to me, valentines day has always been a cheap and tawdry popularity contest.It started in elementary school with the cute and popular kids getting mounds of cards and candy and looking askance at my little box with nothing in it but the generic cards that came from the kids whose parents forced them to bring something for everyone.High School? Even worse – they go around in the morning delivering balloons and flowers and the pretty people walk around the rest of the day practically being dragged off their feet by the amount of helium they are trying to control. The rest of us would just try to spend the day scurrying around trying not to show off our complete lack of pink and red plastic symbolic popularity.It’s not much better now – with V-day an excuse to see who gets the largest bunch of flowers delivered to their desk, or has the best story the next day.So, even though I am all grown up now and married and in love and all of that stuff. I completely boycott valentines day and everything it has come to stand for.That’s not to say I don’t believe in love. I do. I tell Bobo I love him every day (and after nine years of marriage, I think that’s pretty good). I just don’t enjoy the “forced death march” aspect of valentines day, the competition and the expectations. I was at WalMart to pick up some groceries on V-day evening and there were hordes of pathetic looking guys, pawing through the bent cards and slightly deflated balloons, desperately seeking something that they could bring home so as to avoid getting in valentines day trouble. It just made me kind of sad.But, that’s just me. I’m sure there are all sorts of people out there who love valentines day. I don’t begrudge them the experience. If they enjoy it, more power to them.
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The comments are as good as the post!
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AMEN!
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