Column: Gifts and spending take away from true meaning of holiday
As Valentine’s Day approaches, I can still remember the anticipation I was filled with preparing all my valentines for my classmates as a child.
I would spend weeks preparing for the big day. I remember pestering my dad to help me with my valentine box and spending hours writing sweet, misspelled messages to all my classmates in red marker.
Valentine’s Day is a beautiful time to express love for someone, as it is supposed to be a time for love and caring.
But, Valentine’s Day has perverted into a holiday in which people try to spend the most money in order to prove their endearment.
As I got older, I realized that Valentine’s Day took a materialistic turn; it began to be more about receiving than giving, it began to be more about boasting than appreciation, and it began to be more about money than sincerity.
Everywhere I look, I cannot help but notice advertisements trying to lure me into spending large sums of money on my loved ones, as if that accurately depicts my appreciation for someone. Embracing the idea of care does not mean spending large amounts of money and it does nothing to validate the authenticity of a relationship.
Quantifying love based on how much money someone dishes out is ridiculous and superficial because it is simply impossible to put a dollar amount of love in a relationship.
Buying expensive gifts does not represent how much we care for someone, nor does receiving gifts mean someone loves us.
While receiving gifts can make us feel appreciated, that should not be the basis of our relationships with other people, whether it is Valentine’s Day or not. Gifts should not be the center focal point of Valentine’s Day, nor should it be what we look forward to most.
I am not saying we should return to giving each other cartoon filled valentines as we did in elementary school, but rather we should focus on giving more meaningful gifts to our loved ones because they will mean much more than an expensive watch or bracelet.