I wrote this post on Februart 15, 2016.
It really is.
Hearts, cookies, wine, cards to the entire class . . . and for what purpose?
If you love someone, you put effort into your relationship every day.
If you don’t love someone, Valentine’s day won’t help that.
If you are in a relationship, you should be putting in more effort than cookies and wine on February 14th.
If you’re not in a relationship, a day to make you feel single is just dumb.
Same goes for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and every other Hallmark holiday that was created for poochy-moochy.
In Israel, we have the 15th of Av, a historical holiday commemorating the massive matchmaking dances of ancient Israel (we’ve been here thousands of years, remember?). And today, it has become a kind of Israeli valentine’s day, except less drippingly-sweet (no hearts handed out to the entire class, no candies) and with a few traces more meaning.
The issue is that in recent years, Israel has started to adopt February 14 as Valentine’s day, too. So now we have 15 of Av, a historical holiday which is celebrated as a day of relationships and love. AND we have February 14, because, well, it’s another day to sell stuff.
It’s not just stupid. It’s consumer-ism at its best (or rather, worst).
We don’t need Valentine’s day. And really, neither does anyone else.
