5 Reasons to Celebrate the Day After Valentine’s Day!
Do the commercialism and syrupy sweetness of Valentine’s Day ever make you wonder what it’s all about and why we go ga-ga on this day every year? Me too. That’s why my husband and I don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day. We celebrate the day after!
The first Valentine’s Day my husband and I celebrated was 24 years ago. I had such expectations of the day because we were in love, and I knew that my Prince Charming would make it the day I always dreamed it would be.
Except, he didn’t. Because he’s not a huge gift-giver, and he’s not into collecting tons of stuff, and even then, he was sort of a minimalist. That we stayed together after the epic argument about what love really meant that day is a testament to our relationship, but even then, we vowed we’d never celebrate another Valentine’s Day again.
Related: 5 Simple Date Night Ideas to Celebrate Valentine’s Day
And we haven’t. Several years ago, though, my husband stumbled on to something many of us mamas already know. The day after Valentine’s Day often has the same stuff that stores were selling for Valentine’s Day, only at a fraction of the price. He came home with 33 dozen flowers (no exaggeration) proudly glowing that he’d not even spent what he would have on one dozen roses just the day before. Thus…our tradition continued, and here are five reasons why it has:
1. You really can say, “I love you,” every day of the year.
I know, I know. Simplistic and cliche, but the reality is that a single day to proclaim your love sort of defeats the opportunity of every other day. An authentic air-blown kiss from my little guy randomly is so much more valuable to me than an obligatory school craft, and my husband bringing me flowers because he knows I’ve had a hard week means so much more than me fretting over spending $150 on twelve roses that are about to die.
2. Valentine’s Day doesn’t necessarily have the roots people think it does.
While it’s true that over the years, the concept of the martyrdom of saints named Valentine has backed the basis of history for Valentine’s Day, it actually has some pretty gruesome beginnings. According to NPR, the Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia from February 13 to 15. During this, men sacrificed goats and dogs, and then whipped women (who willingly offered themselves to bring more fertility upon them) with the skins of the slain dogs. After, men would draw names of women from a jar to have at their leisure for the duration of the festival. Yeah, no thanks.
3. No one needs all that junk.
Whether it’s dye and sugar-filled candies, trinkets that get tossed into boxes of ‘keepsakes’ (or worse, landfills) or any of the other things that have lined aisle after aisle of your local store since Christmas Day (literally), to me, it seems almost gluttonous to bring more into our house/lives just for the sake of commercialism and consumerism. Which brings me to point number four…
Related: Why I am Raising a Minimalist
4. Retailers gouge consumers on Valentine’s Day.
There is such unfair expectation on people for Valentine’s Day gifts (I know, I’ve been there!), and retailers totally take advantage of that. A dozen red roses could easily set someone back $100-$200 dollars, and that sounds insane to me in a world where one in nine goes to bed hungry every night. Of those hungry, 60% are women and girls, in oppressive patriarchal social structures. I just cannot justify that expense when others suffer.
5. The day after Valentine’s Day can put good use to what would be wasted.
The reason we *do* tend to ‘celebrate’ the day after is because things are so much less expensive, as my husband found out. While I don’t have space for 33 dozen flowers, there are so many other places in my community that need a little Valentine’s cheer, even if the day after. We buy flowers and take them to our local nursing homes and school for the staff, and we scarf up toys and trinkets to fill boxes for Operation Shoebox at Christmas time.
The children who receive those boxes have no concept of Valentine’s Day, but they do love that someone was thinking of them even in February. For our family, things we buy the day after as we ‘celebrate’ allow us to love others in such bigger ways, and that’s what makes love feel pretty grand!
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