Chantellyboom said:
a day for consumers to rob us
You mean merchants there, I think. But I agree. For all the talk that it's been commercialised... I really don't know others' experience with that but I've seen it in action. Directly in action. And I didn't like it. Here is my story:
About 15 years ago, the only way I knew of Valentine's day was due to movies from the USA. I didn't even know which date it fell on or anything else than what movies showed, i.e., people stressing out about being single or trying to pick a date and stuff. We don't celebrate that in my country. Or we didn't use to. See probably 10 years ago (or around there) shops started offering Valentine's day stuff. It was small - maybe some cards, here and there you'd see flowers or some gifts going on sale. It was a bit weird, as it felt like injecting foreign culture. But it was also small. And then each year, things started to grow. Now the vast majority of stores offer Valentine's day themed promotions and stuff. And fuck chocolates or flowers - you are told that to prove your love you have to buy what each store offers. That includes mobile phones, for example, or whatever else happens to be sold there. It's even in ads on the TV "Hey, you know that foreign holiday? Yeah, you MUST honour it and you MUST buy this thing for your partner or you don't love them as much". That's really frustrating to see - a date that went from being just somebody else's thing is now being advertised as the time to BUY LOTS O' STUFF to prove something that never needed that proof until a while ago.
But that's not the only issue I have with Valentine's day - it's not only the foreign holiday thing it has going on, no. See, we actually HAD that holiday already. Less than a month after St. Valentine's, even - it's not exactly the same but there is a "mother's/women's day" which covers pretty mucht he same aspects as it. Only St. Valentine's gives a bit of leeway to people so both sexes are expected to treat the other (how often that happens, I don't know) on the women's day it's women that get treated to something nice. But there is also love and that other stuff overlapping between the two. So it is not only somebody else's, it is also redundant - you can't make a case of "but it's a nice thing to celebrate" because we already did that.
And final problem with Valentine's day - it's on 14th of February. For people who normally celebrate it then it doesn't mean much but look at it from my perspective - this date is already occupied by
another holiday. It feels...wrong to suddenly say "nope, you have to honour that other holiday even if you already kind of do and even if you already do something else at the same time". Oh, and what holiday it is? I'd say it's way better than St. Valentine's but maybe it's just me.
The legend goes that St. Trifon did some stuff and yadda yadda yadda now wine. Yeah, it's a wine celebration day. Erm...it the highest official sense, that is, it's more like "wine and all other alcohol celebration day", actually. You probably guessed what's the tradition there - in order to celebrate the holiday, you go and drink wine and other alcohol (if you fancy that). Beats a card and a box of chocolates, if you ask me.
So, no, I don't really celebrate Valentine's day and I'm not a big fan of it either. But just so we're clear - I'm not a big fan of it unless it's in its native territory - I don't care there.
