Of course, I will be celebrating St. Valentine’s Day. I’m Ukrainian and if there is one thing we know how to do well it is to celebrate. Celebrations and feasts are central to a person’s psychological health, which is why I use any opportunity to celebrate. Often, N. and I have celebrations for things like “The First Tuesday This Week” or “The Last February This Year.” And you don’t need a lot to celebrate. You don’t really need company or money. One can celebrate perfectly well over a baked potato (but it has to be baked well, of course. No foil!).
This is why people who begrudge themselves an opportunity to enjoy a festive occasion seem weird to me. Who cares that the holiday “has been commercialized” (the dreaded passive voice again)? If you have problems with commerce, then don’t buy anything. There are many great gifts that can be offered (both to others and to oneself) with no money outlay.
And if you have had a really horrible day, that’s all the more reason to celebrate. Celebrate that this bad day is finally over and that you have managed to get through it. If you don’t have a partner on St. Valentine’s Day, then celebrate that you are not in a bad relationship and have your options open to meet somebody great or to enjoy a perfectly happy single existence.
The idea that St. Valentine’s Day “makes single people feel incomplete” sounds completely bizarre to me. If you don’t feel incomplete, nobody can make you feel so. Nobody can make you feel anything because your feelings come from inside you. I always celebrated this holiday when I was single and loved it. I gave myself flowers and cute little gifts because one’s love for oneself should always be central to one’s life.
Now that I’m not single any more, I also have not experienced being “pressured to be a certain way” by this holiday. Seriously, if you are past the age of 14 and you can still be pressured by cheesy chocolate commercials to be or not to be a certain way, then you have issues that are far more serious than any single holiday. What can be more fun than creating one’s own traditions with one’s partner and celebrating things in a way that is unique to you?
A holiday is what you make it. And depriving yourself of a chance to celebrate because of what some strangers you haven’t even met do or don’t do is extremely weird.
Have a happy St. Valentine’s Day and a very happy first Tuesday this week!
Clarissa's Blog 
Happy Valentine’s Day! Just happy stuff today such as Ontario cuts post secondary education tuition by 30% this year.
http://www.tcu.gov.on.ca/eng/
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Ontario rules!
Happy Tuition Cut Day, everybody!
Now this should be a holiday everybody can get behind.
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Happy Valentines’ Day to you as well! 🙂
“the dreaded past tense” Did you mean “the dreaded passive voice”? 😉
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Gosh, thank you!
Of course, it’s passive voice. This is what happens when you don’t sleep. Thanks for catching it.
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No foil? But how do you bake them, then? The foil keeps the oil or butter nice and close to the skin… or at least, that’s what I’ve always thought.
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I just bake them on a baking sheet. And I don’t put any butter or oil onto them. Then, they get these great, crusty, brown skins that I eat in their entirety because they are the best part.
I’m baking potatoes tonight for the celebration. 🙂
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Happy Valentine’s Day!
one’s love for oneself should always be central to one’s life
This is exactly what I am struggling with, I realise it on a rational level, but I can’t make myself believe in it, because it is completely against my cultural values and against how I was brought up. In my upbringing the main thing was to take care of others, never oneself (and if you did, that was considered completely and totally selfish).
So if at some point you feel like writing about how you came to this conclusion and how you started believing in it, that would be very much appreciated.
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That’s a very good idea for a post. Thank you for suggesting it!
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Could you also clarify then what’s the difference between one’s love for oneself being central to one’s life and selfishness? And I would love to read a post about classes in FSU and US too. Those “between – cultural” (?) posts are very interesting.
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I don’t usually celebrate Valentines Day (I’m not much of one for celebrations) but I do observe “National Discount Chocolate Day” tomorrow.
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Ah, Discount Chocolate sounds like a fantastic holiday to observe!
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i have been known to celebrate my birthday for an entire month. My husband wished me Happy Valentine’s Day this a.m. and now I’m going shopping. Happy “V” Day.
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That’s the way to celebrate birthdays! Good for you!
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You know when I think VD I think John Donne.
HAIL Bishop Valentine, whose day this is;
All the air is thy diocese,
And all the chirping choristers
And other birds are thy parishioners;
Thou marriest every year
The lyric lark, and the grave whispering dove,
The sparrow that neglects his life for love,
The household bird with the red stomacher;
Thou makest the blackbird speed as soon,
As doth the goldfinch, or the halcyon;
The husband cock looks out, and straight is sped,
And meets his wife, which brings her feather-bed.
This day more cheerfully than ever shine;
This day, which might enflame thyself, old Valentine.
“The husband cock” is about the best line ever.
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Happy Valentine’s Day!
Jaime and I were planning on celebrating with a nice dinner, but all of the restaurants in Victoria are booked, so we’ve decided to celebrate with an indoor picnic of chocolate, cuddles, sparkling lemonade, and a marathon of Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Tomorrow we will also celebrate discount chocolate day, and next Sunday, we’re celebrating a delayed action Valentine’s Day by going out for dinner and a movie. 🙂
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“Tomorrow we will also celebrate discount chocolate day, and next Sunday, we’re celebrating a delayed action Valentine’s Day by going out for dinner and a movie”
– You are both my kind of gals. 🙂
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My problem with Valentine’s Day is that I have to look at my friends fawning over their girlfriends, and it reminds me of how lonely I am.
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You are just churning out the brilliant posts today!
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Thank you, Melissa! 🙂
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Personally I can’t stand the day and if it wasn’t for the discount candy on the 15th I’d say its completely worthless. Because seriously if love is that important why limit its celebration to one day?
And the post linked to jokes (or at least I hope its a joke) about “Occupy Valentine’s Day”. Damn that occupy implies that you want to take control it because it holds value. I’d rather destroy it.
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” Because seriously if love is that important why limit its celebration to one day?”
– Who says anybody does??
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People themselves say it. They say it by fretting over getting their loved one a gift on this one day more than any other of the year. And of course the unspoken pissing matches I’ve seen going on between women showing off what their guys sent them for V-Day.
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Dude I don’t know. What about anniversaries? And birthdays? And Christmas? VD is not even on my radar of immensely stressful gift-giving days. But then, I am not one of those who is not grateful and appreciative of the love she’s got every single day of the year. 🙂
Who does this? I must not know these kinds of people. That’s probably a good thing.
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My daughter had a funny one for valentine’s day for singles. Its called SAD………..singles awareness day. 🙂
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The year after my husband died, Valentine’s Day was pretty rough, but I decided I didn’t want to be miserable all the time. It takes some willpower. If you are alone, and don’t want to be, I think you have to acknowledge that, and then decide you will make the best of it. Not false forced cheerfulness, but just finding things you like to do, and then acknowledging that it is possible to have a good time alone. I buy myself a present and chocolates every Valentines Day, and think that I am getting exactly what I want. And I make sure I have a really good book or a movie on DVD. So I look forward to Valentine’s Day. Of course, not having insensitive friends who fawn over their sig. other in front of me helps.
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” I buy myself a present and chocolates every Valentines Day, and think that I am getting exactly what I want. And I make sure I have a really good book or a movie on DVD. So I look forward to Valentine’s Day. ”
– You are a brave person and I admire you.
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I’m sick and so is my “other”, so we will have a somewhat delayed Valentine’s Day. I’m somewhat used to delayed celebrations anyway given schedules.
I bought good meat (on sale) and sugar. Nothing says I love you more than meat! Ha! (This man is no vegetarian) and he is not apologetic about it either. As for me, I could really just eat pie or an equally good dessert as my main course–that’s where the sugar part comes in.
I’m gonna make us a feast when I feel lots better. Hope your day was a good one!
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I just hate things that are coordinated. Anniversaries good, Valentines bad.
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Passive voice! 🙂 Coordinated by whom? 🙂
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In a critical sense, no one. The day is a focal point for certain types of actions due to accumulated cultural baggage. So, in a more relevant sense, by you and everyone else that celebrates Valentine’s day. The result is of human action but not of human design, as the man said.
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Cultural baggage accummulated by whom? 🙂 🙂 We can choose what baggage to carry, can’t we? This is why I can’t accept the suggestion that I, a person from a culture that is unfamiliar with this holiday, am somehow responsible for the cultural baggage of English-speakers. My baggage includes March 8, International Women’s Day, which I will be celebrating.
Everybody is welcome to share this baggage of mine. 🙂
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Sorry if I’m being unclear; you are carrying the relevant baggage if you celebrate the relevant day. That’s what reinforces it’s focal status.
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“Sorry if I’m being unclear; you are carrying the relevant baggage if you celebrate the relevant day.”
– I’m not carrying anything. If I choose to celebrate St. Valentine’s it isn’t because some group somewhere decided something for me but because it amuses me. I celebrate it just like I celebrate “The First Tuesday This Week”, the holiday I invented.
You seem to find some crucial difference between doing something because everybody else does it and not doing something because everybody else does it. In reality, though, there is no difference. In both cases, you are guided by the choices of others.
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