Saturday Thoughts on February 15, 2025
Yesterday was Valentine’s Day. The grocery stores and jewelry stores and flower shops were clogged with men buying candy and flowers and pretty baubles for their ladyloves. I saw a tween getting something for his grandma. The restaurants were full of celebrating couples, and high dollar steaks with all the trimmings were flying out of the meat case at HEB. The greeting card section was chock full of every kind of Valentine’s Day card imaginable. There were even Valentine’s Day movies on the small screen. Quite the fuss. And quite a bit of money changing hands.
So this is where I decry the commercialization of love, right? I whine about empty gestures and say that it’s been ruined by the almighty buck.
Wrong.
I have no objection whatsoever to the celebration. In fact, I went by the jeweler. (It was to get a ring sized, but that’s okay.) I bought some of those high-dollar steaks with the trimmings. I even looked up St. Valentine on the Internet and learned to my surprise that February 14 still has a place on many church calendars. I learned about the gradual development of the holiday from a religious commemoration into a celebration of romantic love, starting in the eighteenth century. After dinner I read and enjoyed a romance novel.
And I celebrated the fact that I still have a wonderful man who loves me as much as he did fifty-five years ago, if not more. I felt joy for my friends who are equally loved and felt deep compassion for my friends who are no longer so blessed, or maybe never were. I’m a firm believer in love, both the storybook kind and the real-life kind, and am glad we can take a day every year to celebrate it.
