Wednesday, February 13, 2008

V-Day

For so many years I despised Valentine's Day. Before I was married, I spent very little of my life in relationships. I was always single and nothing reminded me of that fact more than Valentine's Day. So, you're probably expecting me to say that I love it now- well, guess what? I don't! We don't even celebrate it! I mean, it's a good excuse to eat chocolate, but H and I don't exchange gifts or cards. I stopped at the drugstore on the way home to get D some valentines for school, then the Hallmark store to get her stickers, and the grocery store to pick up soy milk. The floral section at Kroger was mobbed with people. The card aisle was full of men. I saw a colleague at check-out who dropped his wife's card as he was leaving. When he stopped to pick it up, he said that he was glad that remembered on time this year. Oh dear. Why should people be knocking themselves out over this? Aren't birthdays and anniversaries and Christmas enough? It just seems crazy to me. Is anyone else with me on this? Am I just too cynical? Am I sick in the head that I don't want a diamond pendant?

13 comments:

DancingFish said...

I'm with ya! My husband teaches on Friday so has to prep. We will splurge on Thai take out though!

Anonymous said...

I'm totally with you too! We'll probably get takeout too, but that's mostly because I'm sick of pretending to cook lately.

And your comment on the diamond pendant made me laugh. Every time GB and I see a jewelry commercial one of us says, "PLEASE don't waste our money on diamonds!" :)

DrOtter said...

Mmm, I am and I'm not with you. I don't do big gifts, but R and I usually do cards and small things like a box of chocolates and a nice bottle of wine. Saying that, the sheep in my profile pic? Valentine's gift from R the first year we were together.
It is more commercial in North America - like I saw boxes of cards for kids to give to their school friends one year. In the UK it is about couples, not V cards for Mom.

Anonymous said...

i could not agree with your more! i had the unfortunate pleasure of being in a superwalmart on the night before and the day of Valentine's day. ugh.

Dr. Brazen Hussy said...

I am with you too. We are, however, using today as an excuse to go out to dinner. Many of the restaurants have really great V-day menus and we just like good food. Ditto for chocolate. :)

Arbitrista said...

Brazen and I just use it as an excuse to go out for a nice dinner. Like we need an excuse.

Dammit did Brazen just write that?

Julep said...

I agree with you but also with the others. It's a great excuse to go out for a nice dinner. But I don't treat it like an obligation and get all ga-ga over it.

Twice said...

In grad school, I typically held an anti-valentine's day party. Decorations included lots of non-heart shapes and dead roses. The dead roses were easy - my very frugal housemates (a couple) had a long standing agreement that if flowers were going to happen, they would always happen on groundhog day (to avoid the V-day markup in price).

Seeking Solace said...

My husband came home with flowers yesterday. But, he sometimes buys me flowers "just because". We don't exchange gifts, but we will probably go out to dinner on Friday.

Ianqui said...

Yesterday, my husband and I finally went to actually buy the new couch and loveseat that we'd decided on as part of redesigning the apartment for the impending new arrival. For a minute I had misgivings about spending over $1000 on this, and I asked to reassure me that it's OK, that we have the money for this. He said, "You know what? We have the money. I'm going to tell you why we have the money. Today my two coworkers were on the Tiffany website, spending many hundreds of dollars for their girlfriends and wives for Valentine's Day. We're buying a couch, which we need." (keeping in mind that our current couch was inherited from my roommate in grad school).

He also pointed out that these guys eat out every day, and so he calculated for them how much they spend in a year just on lunch, and it came out to well over $1000. Super G and I bring our lunch every day.

Cath@VWXYNot? said...

We're going to a hockey game, but if we hadn't got the tickets we'd probably be spending the evening on the sofa with some nice food and maybe a bottle of wine.
I'm with Propter Doc on how different things are in North America. Back home in the UK you would only ever get something for your sweetie. The concept of bringing cards and cookies in to school or work is totally foreign to me. (I do eat the cookies though).

Addy N. said...

Wow! That sure generated a lot of comments! I agree with everyone that it's a good excuse to eat a nice diner or drink some wine or eat chocolate or whatever. I guess I have two problems with the whole day: 1) the over-commercialization of it- buy the heart-shaped box of candy and a card and red roses or your wife will be mad, because we women only want material, superficial things from our partners and, 2) the emphasis on couples- as if everyone in earth HAS to be in a couple and that they have a problem if they are not. And you have to admit the commercials get pretty grotesque right about now... Anyway- "Have fun" to those who are going out to dinner!

Laura said...

Ugh. Valentines Day is a waste of time and money to me. I have decided when/if I ever do the marrage thing I want to celebrate some random holiday like Arbor Day - plant a tree with my sweet-heart and do something good for the world! For now, I just remind ALL the people that I care about how important they are in my life. (Which I do more than just once a year anyway....)