Valentine’s Day is one of the most expensive holidays of the year. Between the flowers, the card, the dinner and the ice cream, the costs can be pretty high for even the most casual Valentine’s Day rendezvous. The only way to escape these costs is to not be anywhere near a relationship on Feb. 14.
But Valentine’s Day is only one in a long line of minor holidays built around spending cash in order to demonstrate “love.” It seems as if every other week there is another holiday that revolves around getting cards and flowers for one group or another. Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Grandparent’s Day and Valentine’s Day are all examples of “Hallmark Holidays” that only exist in order to guilt us all into buying gifts.
The scourge of commercialization marked even the earliest days of these holidays. Anna Jarvis, who devoted much of her life to the founding of Mother’s Day at the beginning of the 20th century, began to see the monetization of the holiday just nine years after the first official “Mother’s Day.” Jarvis spent the remainder of her life railing against the thing that Mother’s Day had become, saying that she “wanted it to be a day of sentiment, not profit.” Sadly, her wishes were not granted. Mother’s Day is now the busiest day for flower deliveries and remains one of the most popular Hallmark holidays of the year.
The crux of these holidays is that they are impossible to ignore. Try ignoring Valentine’s Day while in a relationship and see how quickly the angry texts begin to flow in. And just imagine your poor mother’s sadness if she didn’t get flowers on Mother’s Day. These holidays have been ingrained into American culture simply because they cannot be escaped and companies prey on the public’s inability to escape them.
People only celebrate these holidays in order to avoid giving offense to someone they care about. The effect of this is a day that is lackluster for both parties, with the subject’s expectations being set too high and those giving gifts feeling forced into it.
It is not that these holidays are necessarily bad or that their message is somehow damaging. Mothers deserve to be given breakfast in bed every single day of the year, not just on Mother’s Day. Relationships should be cherished and nourished whenever possible instead of just on Valentine’s Day. By prescribing a single day for appreciation, society preaches that the other days aren’t as important for relationships and that they can be neglected at will.
We need to take back gratefulness from the greeting card companies. Instead of waiting for Mother’s Day to buy your mom a card, make sure she knows how much she means to you every day. Instead of spending hundreds of dollars on one day in a relationship, do little things all the time to make sure your significant other know how much they mean to you.
It’ll take time to escape from the trap of the Hallmark Holidays. There will be tears, there will be fights, and there will be hollering. But in the end, we will all be better, and richer, for escaping their grasps.
