Valentines Smalentines

From Valentine’s Day…it was up on the website, but I’m a bit tardy to post it here. Enjoy!

Happy unimaginative, consumerist-oriented and entirely arbitrary, manipulative and shallow interpretation of romance day..aka Valentine’s Day.

 Ladies, if you need a special day for you to express just how much your significant other means to you– you’re doing the whole relationship thing wrong. I don’t have the luxury of seeing my husband much, so I make sure that he knows daily just how much he means to me. I don’t expect anything on Valentine’s Day because lets face it, it’s nothing more than a Hallmark holiday. I’ll be honest and admit that I get pulled into the Valentine’s Day festivities every year, and it still amazes me that every year when purchasing cards for my loved ones I’m shocked at the amount of money I spent on them.  Hallmark is making a killing. Seriously, I’d be interested in knowing just how much they make the week leading up to Valentine’s Day.

I think it’s ridiculous that women expect to receive a dozen (or more) red roses (so cliché and boring), an over-sized teddy bear and enough chocolates to put anyone into diabetic shock.  Whatever happened to expressing appreciation for your spouse daily rather than the common “go big or go home” mentality surrounding Valentine’s Day.

It’s my belief that Valentine’s Day has become rather cliché and the meaning of it has truly become monopolized by retailers as a means to profit tons and tons of money. On top of that, Valentine’s Day for single people turns into a self-loathing, feel bad for me, chocolate binge-eating, romantic movie, cry into a tissue kind of night. Tears will be shed, folks. Why rub their loneliness in their faces even more with the millions of jewelry commercials on TV. It’s enough to make any single person want to curl up into a ball and weep. What has our society come too?

This Valentine’s Day, I’m at home with my 11 month old. I’ve cleaned all three bathrooms (toilets included), done three loads of laundry (folded and put away), killed a stink-bug (gross), re-organized all the bathroom cupboards and drawers, cleaned the kitchen, prepared the grocery list for a trip to the store tomorrow, and it was only 6pm at this point.  I’m doing all of this as my husband works all day.

Listen folks, my point is that we can’t just rely on a “holiday” to let our spouses know how much they mean to you. Roses, chocolate and a card on one day can’t make up for every other day of not appreciating your spouse. Life is short, don’t go a day without thanking your spouse and telling them how much you love and appreciate them.

With that being said, I’d like everyone to know how amazing my husband is.  JASON, we may not see each other much, and we may have an argument from time-to-time, but at the end of the day, we are in love and happy.  Braxton and I miss you, and we appreciate you and we loved you yesterday, we love you today and we will love you forever unconditionally.

And let us not forget ladies and gents that it is important to eat those Valentine’s chocolates in moderation. I don’t want to hear you in the gym tomorrow complaining about looking fat. I may or may not tell you to ease up on the Valentines chocolates you consumerist-oriented Valentine’s Day Junkie.