This article looks at the history of Valentine’s Day and analyzes how it has transformed into a capitalized holiday.
As cut-out heart decorations and images of Cupid circulate once again, it’s impossible to miss the impending arrival of February 14th. Valentine’s Day is a holiday advertised as a celebration of love and romance. However, once the layers of roses and chocolates are peeled back, we find that love is far from the driving force behind this holiday now.
While the official origin of the holiday is a little fuzzy, the main concept comes from Christian and Roman traditions. It’s a day meant to commemorate the martyr Saint Valentine. One story behind Saint Valentine is that he was a priest during the third century in Rome who helped marry young couples even after it was outlawed by Emperor Claudius II.
Another potential origin story is that Valentine was imprisoned after attempting to help Christians escape Roman prisons. While inside the jail, he sent a letter to the jailor’s daughter whom he befriended and fell in love with, and he signed the note “From your valentine.”
It’s also suggested that Valentine’s Day is the successor to the Roman festival of Lupercalia. This holiday celebrated the coming of spring and included pairing women off with men by lottery for fertility rites.
When looking at the surmised roots of the holiday, all of them mingle with some element of love or romance. But, considering that U.S. citizens spent $25.9 billion on Valentine’s Day in 2023, it’s hard to imagine how we transitioned from the celebration of a martyr to incredulous amounts of (mostly) unnecessary expenditures.
Unfortunately, what should be a day for love has transformed into a Hallmark holiday. Just because Valentine’s Day has origins well before the greeting card company was manufactured doesn’t mean that Hallmark hasn’t upended it and completely taken control of the holiday. Instead of writing handwritten notes such as Saint Valentine, people are now expected to perform obnoxiously large displays of affection in order to have a successful holiday.
If you look at how we celebrate Valentine’s Day today, you’ll find grocery stores stocked with mounds of chocolates, floral arrangements, tacky greeting cards and oversized stuffed animals. Seeing that these displays come around well before February, it’s clear that companies don’t care as much about your relationship as they do about your wallet.
Just as many other holidays have fallen victim to capitalism, Valentine’s Day is now a commercialized celebration that has overshadowed genuine expressions of love. It promotes the idea of giving gifts simply to give gifts, often then leading to unnecessary consumerism, especially when looking at the goods traditionally associated with the day (What am I supposed to do with a four-foot-tall stuffed bear?).
In fact, the build-up and pressure to have the most romantic relationship that Valentine’s Day promotes could potentially have the opposite effect. Having an entire holiday dedicated to showing how much you love another person puts a lot of stress on the gift you present to your partner. Plus, a lack of communication about how you celebrate the day is bound to create tension if there are unmet expectations.
Expressing your love for someone shouldn’t just fall on a holiday. It’s the little everyday acts that truly show your dedication to another person. It shouldn’t take a holiday to force you to want to share your love with your partner.
While there’s nothing wrong with wanting an extra special celebration with your significant other to reinforce the romance between the two of you, there are plenty of other opportunities to do so in the other 364 days of a year.
If you really want a special date in order to celebrate your partner, that’s what birthdays and anniversaries are for. At least in those festivities, you are honoring something truly meaningful and sentimental to your own relationship.
Don’t get me started on what this holiday looks like to people who are single. If you don’t have a significant other to share the day with, it’s potentially agonizing to be surrounded by exorbitant displays of love.
Despite its downsides, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to celebrate Valentine’s Day without giving in to the commodified festivities.
One of the best ways to do this is to find ways to make Valentine’s Day your own rather than feeding off of the generic gift of a box of chocolates. This could look like recreating your first date, writing a handwritten note, making a scrapbook with your favorite pictures and memories or anything else that is meaningful to both you and your partner.
Not all love is loud, and Valentine’s Day makes it seem like if you’re not screaming your affectionate gestures, then your relationship is doomed.
However, every relationship looks different. If you’re into the mushy-gushy gifts and the extravaganzas that come with the traditional Valentine’s Day celebration, then lucky you! You don’t need to change a thing. There’s also nothing wrong if you’re more inclined to celebrate Galentine’s Day with some of your closest friends.
Making this a holiday worth celebrating means returning to the roots of love rather than simply purchasing an overpriced bouquet of roses and calling it a day. Consider spreading out random acts of love and kindness throughout the year instead of overloading it all in one day. There’s nothing more special than a thoughtful gift of love rather than a gift that was a result of Cupid aiming his arrow at you.
