Count down to V Day!

By V I mean Valentine's. A holiday where all non native speakers and children under 10 mistakenly believe that it's Valen-times. Valen being old english for love or something sexier. I guess I'm just unhappy with the mentality saddled with the holiday.

No one ever accuses Valentine's Day of being over commercialized. The meaning of Valentine's Day is never lost no matter how retailers try to corrupt it with nifty marketing campaigns. The reason is pure and simple Valentine's Day is a very self serving holiday because in our culture romantic love s a very self serving notion. It can range from silly to serious and grade school to matrimonial. From Valentines Day cards marketing favorite Disney characters catering to the prepubescent crowd to thousand dollar engagement rings with ethically questionable diamonds, and everything in between. These are all perfectly acceptable expressions of the Valentine's Day spirit.

In the realm of romantic love, Valentine's Day tells us that it's totally all right to be asking instead of giving. It tells us to be sad when we can't expect anything. Worse of all, it tells us to be sad and broken when you give and don't receive. When we can't expect anything from others, it is also reasonable to love ourselves and lavish ourselves with some sort of consolation gift. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this isn't respectable mentality for Christmas (supposedly the holiday of charity and love for humanity--and Jesus if you're of that persuasion). You might get yourself stuff while shopping for Christmas--or after, but you wouldn't think of it as a gift for yourself.

Maybe it's the backlash from all that selflessness from the end of last year. Then again, this amorous holiday is more on topic than other February holidays. Read: President's Day where the nation celebrates steep discounts on furniture and automobiles. Certainly this could be read as a far reaching economic stimulus package from Washington and Lincoln. (I'm going to get out while I'm ahead. Before I go on a spiel of Lincoln's most economically brilliant plan: Thanksgiving).