Valentine’s Day shouldn’t be just a Hallmark holiday.
Granted, Valentine’s Day only comes in second to Christmas in card-sending holidays with a total of approximately 150 million exchanged, women making up 85 percent of the senders. Hallmark makes 1,400 different card variations for the holiday alone.
The holiday has many different origin stories, each one different depending on religion. For Catholics, it is linked to Saint Valentine, who continued to marry soldiers even when the king had outlawed the practice on the belief that single soldiers fought better than those who were married.
The Pagan fertility festival Lupercalia was originally held to celebrate the Roman god of agriculture as well as Rome’s founder. After the goat sacrifice, all of the young women would place their names in an urn and bachelors would then choose a name from the urn. Whatever name a bachelor chose is the woman he would be paired with for the year.
The modern version of the valentine exchange started in the early 1700s.
Valentine’s Day, in its modern sense, is a day dedicated solely to love, friendship and candy. People don’t always take the time to reflect on the current state of the relationships in their lives and really consider ways to make them better. But when Feb. 14 rolls around, flowers, candy and jewelry sales skyrocket, and other sweet signs of affection are plentiful.
The material objects and gifts exchanged during the holiday are sweet and a good way to express appreciation for another human, no matter the relationship type.
But there shouldn’t have to be a day dedicated to showing people they are important and loved.
The majority of people want to be appreciated and shown affection all year-round, not just on one day a year when it’s deemed sociably acceptable for romantic and friendly gestures.
Showing vulnerability and emotion shouldn’t have a negative stigma attached. If anything, that will just strengthen the relationships in peoples’ lives. It’s entirely human to want to feel needed and loved.
If we work as a society to normalize the concept of loving gestures and telling the people in our lives how we feel and how important they are, relationships, not just the romantic ones, will be stronger.
One-third of Americans surveyed by an AP-WE tv poll said they would prefer an intangible gift for Valentine’s Day such as quality time, health or happiness.
Communication and intangible gifts should be something people bring into their relationships all year.
A survey conducted by YourTango.com, a website that focuses on love and relationships, found the leading cause of failed relationships/marriages is a lack of communication.
So, this Valentine’s Day and really all year, people need to take the time to not only show their appreciation for others in their lives but to communicate better.
