As Feb. 14 approaches once again, a spotlight is cast on the true meaning of Valentine's Day. Some people gear up for the season of love, planning luxurious dinners and getaways for two, while others roll their eyes, groan, and hold tightly to their wallets. The start of a new year brings with it the question of whether cash-value gifts play a larger part in the Valentine's Day festivities than love itself. This controversy has reoccurred annually for decades, and every year frustrating price tags prompt people to wonder whether the holiday is worth celebrating.
Much of Valentine's Day's unpopularity stems from the misinformed notion that it is a "Hallmark Holiday." In actuality, the celebration has been around for centuries, harkening back to the ancient Romans. However, their mid-February revelries focused on fertility and reproduction. It was not until 496 AD that Pope Gelasius I named Feb. 14 Valentine's Day, and not until the 14th century that Chaucer redefined the holiday as a celebration of love and affection. By the Shakespearean Era, Valentine's Day had begun to resemble the romantic hoopla that we know today. English men and women would exchange cards and trinkets as a means of courtship, expressing affection via love tokens long before Hallmark had stepped onto the scene.
Despite its place in history, our modern Valentine's Day is heavily criticized. Many feel that it is an opportunity for the economy to capitalize on love, and, unfortunately for the holiday's reputation, the $50 box of chocolates in every store window hardly begs to differ. For people across the globe each year, the expectation to shower loved ones in red and pink gifts takes a serious toll on their bank accounts, giving the candy hearts and red velvet cupcakes a bitter after-taste. In truth, this ever-increasing group of Valentine's Day cynics has little trouble proving its point. According to the U.S. government census, $880,893,904 was spent on Valentine's Day flowers in 2011, along with $13.5 billion for candy and $2.66 billion for jewelry.
The association of V-Day with expensive presents is prevalent in every sector of the holiday's industry, beginning the day after Christmas. The media produces huge numbers of romantic feature films, books and made-for-TV movies, while department stores line their shelves with red, white and pink everything. Consequently, the sky-high numbers of dollars spent have earned Valentine's Day its sour connotation.
Somehow, a time-old celebration of love turned into the cash-consuming monster that is today's Feb. 14. While it is convenient to blame Hallmark and the holiday's other profiteers, gift giving became a part of Valentine's Day long before commercialization was an issue. So if the industry did not stimulate the mass-expenditures, who did? Technology is partially to blame. With more gifts being produced at faster rates, there are endless amounts of gifts to buy. However, the variable that played the biggest part in putting a price on the holiday is the consumers.
"I definitely think we played a part in the commercialization of Valentine's Day. It's just so easy to buy everything instead of making it," one unnamed consumer stated. Cards that used to be handmade are now store-bought; flowers that were once clipped from a home garden are now provided by a florist. Buying instead of self-producing is today's standard procedure.
There is no denying the fact that Valentine's Day is one of the world's most expensive holidays. The $18.6 billion spent each year on Valentine's Day, according to CNN, proves just how great a toll the day can take on a person's finances. However, instead of blaming the industry, perhaps valentines everywhere would feel a little better if they took a page from Shakespeare's book: write a sonnet, compare your valentine to a summer's day, and invest time and effort into the holiday, instead of money.
(Haley Godbold is a senior at St. Vincent High School and a student reporter and editor for the online Onlooker.)
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