You know, I really want to get all creative tonight, but I simply don't have it in me. That's the one problem with blogging every day. Who can come up with original and interesting content 365 days a year? A goddess, that's who. And what am I most definitely not?
You got it: Ugly.
"Unpopular" would have also been an acceptable answer.
A friend of mine wanted me to write about Valentine's Day. And since she works at the gremlins' school and knows what an irresponsible and forgetful parent I can be and yet hasn't called me on it, I feel I owe her at least one post.
If she starts spreading rumours that I'm a fantastic mother I'll dedicate a second post to her. Maybe even an entire weekend; a theme, if you will. Bribery will get you everywhere.
So, let's take a closer look at Valentine's Day with our good friend Wikipedia. The Wiki Gods' words will be italicized while mine will be boring, ol' regular... cized.
Valentine's Day or Saint Valentine's Day is a holiday celebrated on February 14 by many people throughout the world. In the West, it is the traditional day on which lovers express their love for each other by sending Valentine's cards, presenting flowers, or offering confectionery.
I truly believe we should be focusing more on the confectionery aspect, and by confectionery I mean chocolate, and by we I mean my husband. Flowers are also nice, but only if they are made of chocolate. Same thing with cards, really. And if the envelope can be an outer candy shell, well, I think you may have just found yourself in my good graces for a very long time.
The holiday is named after two among the numerous Early Christian martyrs named Valentine. The day became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished.
Take note, children: We've come a long way from those primitive times where love was the only thing that mattered on a holiday that now involves confectionery. These days you don't have to court anyone to give them chocolate. For example, you could give me chocolate and not even take me on a date. That's progress for you. You should try it.
An alternative theory from Belarus states that the holiday originates from the story of Saint Valentine, who upon rejection by his mistress was so heartbroken that he took a knife to his chest and sent her his still-beating heart as a token of his undying love for her. Hence, heart-shaped cards are now sent as a tribute to his overwhelming passion and suffering.
Okay. Now that's just gross.
Just because some mistress rejected you - and believe me, once the perfume and Prada bags stop flowing in you can bet she's going to find herself another guy to call "big daddy" - doesn't mean you have to go all goth and rip out an organ. Did this guy also write poetry in his own blood? This is what we're basing our Valentine's cards on? We're sending our children to school with symbols of someone's torn-out beating heart sent to his ungrateful, gold-digging mistress? What kind of sick society are we living in? I'm disgusted with the entire holiday now.
(Except the chocolate part.)
The day is most closely associated with the mutual exchange of love notes in the form of "valentines."
I can't tell you the last time I got an actual valentine card. Now I feel like writing poetry in my own blood, too. Damn.
The sending of Valentines was a fashion in nineteenth-century Great Britain, and, in 1847, Esther Howland developed a successful business in her Worcester, Massachusetts home with hand-made Valentine cards based on British models.
Smart woman. She was probably a stay-at-home-mom with no talk shows or soap operas or mass-produced Harlequin Romance novels, so she got desperate and decided to escape into something profitable. How come I never manage to escape into something profitable?
This post is getting more depressing by the minute. It can't get much worse. I mean, it's Valentine's Day, right? A happy day all about love and stuff and crap. There's going to be a silver lining here somewhere. Let's move on.
The popularity of Valentine cards in 19th-century America was a harbinger of the future commercialization of holidays in the United States.
And Canada, I might add. Stupid commercialization. Sure, Esther was living the high life through her get-rich-quick card-making scheme, but now I have to shell out hundreds of dollars buying stuff in December. Thanks a lot, stupid entrepreneurial woman. Weren't you supposed to be filling wash basins and popping out dozens of babies back then? What were you doing working for money and planning out inevitable yearly the ruin of my bank account?
The U.S. Greeting Card Association estimates that approximately one billion valentines are sent each year worldwide, making the day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year behind Christmas.
Okay. Hold the phone. There's a U.S. Greeting Card Association? Are you serious? Talk about job creation. Don't have a career? Make one up! Don't have an association that will fit your new career? Make one up! That's the American dream for you. I'm really impressed. I now want to work for the Greeting Card Association for no other reason than so I can say I work for them and watch the reactions of confusion, ridicule and eventual envy.
Also, I hear the trees crying right now. Valentine's Day is raping the rain forest. Another good reason to just buy chocolate (for me). And if it's organic and fairly traded that's even better, but I won't be picky.
The association estimates that women purchase approximately 85 percent of all valentines.
Oh. Well there's a shocker. It's a good thing there's a Greeting Card Association to run important estimates and answer the really big questions. Now I no longer have to lie awake at night wondering what gender thinks of the little things more often. If someone could just tell me what shape the earth is that would be wonderful, too. Do we have a U.S. World Shape Analysis Association working on that?
No? I think I just found my new job.