With Valentine’s Day being tomorrow – I found myself feeling like I should post something today about this holiday. But how much do you actually know about Valentine’s Day? My knowledge was honestly very limited so I figured I’d take some time to research it.

So here’s the thing…I spent a good portion of a morning earlier this week looking into the origin of this holiday. Saint Valentine is who is usually associated with this holiday. But the more digging I did into who this person was – the more confusing it got. Because what I found is there’s no real, concrete information about him. We know he was a priest during the rule of Roman Emperor Cladius II. One story says that Claudius banned soldiers getting married and Valentine married them in secret until he was caught and martyred for refusing to renounce his faith. Another story says that Cladius encouraged soldiers to take multiple wives and Valentine would cut hearts out of paper and pass them to soldiers to remind them of God and His love for them. There are other stories too involving a letter written to the jailors daughter signed “Your Valentine” and a ring that had an emblem of a cupid on it. But there’s pieces to all these stories that contradict one another and nothing in them actually explains the basis for this holiday.

Every bit of information I found about the history of Valentine’s Day always seemed to end with something that disproved it. Like the Charter of the Court of Love, which was allegedly issued by Charles VI of France in 1400. It describes lavish festivities to be attended by several members of the royal court, including a feast, amorous song and poetry competitions, jousting and dancing. And during these festivities, the attending ladies would hear and rule on disputes from lovers. BUT…. No other record of the court exists, and none of those named in the charter were present at Mantes (Charles’ home) except Charles’s queen, Isabeau of Bavaria, who may well have imagined it all while waiting out a plague.

Oh my gosh!!! It was driving my batty! I would find some fact and then it would immediately be followed up with something to contradict it or prove it untrue or potentially false.

So I turned to the one place left I might find some insight… Youtube. I thought surely Buzzfeed would have some funny facts about Valentine’s Day or there would be some informational videos to be found. Instead I found video after video of the perfect Valentine’s Day make up, what to wear for your Valentine’s Day date, what to buy your significant other, what not to do on Valentines… The list went on and on with these superficial things… But there was one video that finally caught my eye – it’s a video by Jim Gaffigan talking about why he thinks we should do away with this holiday. And as I listened I found myself agreeing with him…

One of the first things he says:
“Valentines Day is a holiday about love. We have to cram love into one day. Have we become that self-absorbed as a culture? That we have to set aside one day a year to remember to love someone?”

He talks about how we end up expressing our love through bad gifts like pajamagrams and greeting cards with words someone else wrote. It’s the one day we are going to spend focusing on the love we have for someone and we can’t even be bothered to take the time to write our own words for how we feel. He brings up how hard Valentine’s Day is for those who are single. That it’s just a reminder of the absence of companionship in their lives. As if that isn’t hard enough on regular days – now we have a holiday to highlight that further. And for those who are happy couples, it can often be viewed as another opportunity to fail… because of the expectations placed on the holiday by not only your significant other (usual the girl) but also her friends and family.

To further back up Mr. Gaffigan’s arguments – the only solid information I could find about this holiday is that by the mid-1800s, it became popular to give mass-produced chocolates and Valentine’s messages. The two individuals who brought on these mass-produced traditions here in the United States were Richard Cadbury, a member of the famous chocolate-making family who created the heart-shaped box of chocolates, and Esther Howland, who designed and popularized the lace-paper Valentine cards with messages of love and devotion.

So all of you who have been claiming Valentine’s Day to be a Hallmark Holiday – consider yourselves validated. I completely agree with you! And when you look at the surveys and statistics about this holiday you’ll find that men purchase gifts because they feel obligated to, not because they want to. That the longer a couple is together – the less they spend on each other. (Probably because they realize how ridiculous this holiday is in the first place.) That Americans spend $700 million on Valentine’s gifts for (wait for it….) their pets! Rose prices double, candy and card sales sky rocket. But the most interesting fact to me is that 1 in 5 women purchase gifts for themselves, their moms or their girlfriends on this holiday.

So what is this holiday about really? Is it about superficial gifts? Is it about creating this picture of a perfect marriage through a facebook status of the “sweet thing bae” did for you? Clearly this holiday isn’t for men. It seems to be another holiday designed to make women feel good about themselves. And like Jim Gaffigan says, do we really have to set aside one day to remember to that? Shouldn’t we be doing our best to make each other feel loved and special everyday? I for one do not feel a need for this holiday. I think we are better than the hype. I think we can rise above the merchandizing scheme for it and find ways everyday to let the people we care about know we love them.

So let’s start today – take a few minutes today to write someone you care about a letter. Don’t buy a card! Just grab a piece of notebook paper, sit down and write your thoughts. If you see something that makes you think of them on a random Tuesday – why not buy it and send it to them as a surprise? Do we need a holiday to show others we care? I hope today you’ll find a way to start spreading a little love everyday… and not just on Valentine’s Day! I know I sure won’t look at this holiday the same way again! And I’ll be sure to spread a little more love everyday because of it!