Valentine’s Day is almost upon us and aren’t our little, romantic hearts all aflutter?
Not mine. Call me an unromantic, jaded cynic, but to me, Valentine’s Day, as celebrated in this country, is a totally bogus “holiday.” That’s why a column that recently appeared in the local newspaper caught my eye. The column in question was written by syndicated columnist Tom Purcell.
Purcell wrote, “To men, Valentine’s Day is a contrived undertaking that makes mandatory the things...flowers, dining out, expensive jewelry...that should be reserved for the times when we do something really stupid and are desperate to make up.” Hear, hear, Mr. Purcell!
I started to wonder what really was behind this so called holiday, so I Googled “Valentine’s Day.” It turns out that Saint Valentine’s Day was originally observed to honor early Christian martyrs. The Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine, all of whom were martyred. Interestingly, no romantic elements are present in the original early medieval records of these martyrs.
According to the site history.com, some historians believe that Valentine’s Day is celebrated in the middle of February to commemorate the anniversary of Saint Valentine’s death. Hmm. Were all three saints named Valentine martyred around the same time? Did it happen in Chicago and was Al Capone invovled?
But others claim that the Christian church may have decided to place Saint Valentine’s feast day in the middle of February in an effort to “Christianize” the pagan celebration of Lupercalia, which was celebrated around the middle of February.
Lupercalia was a festival in honor of Lupa, the she-wolf who suckled the infant orphans, Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. Lupercalia translates to "Wolf Festival." During the festival, Roman priests would sacrifice a goat for fertility and a dog for purification. They would then cut the goat’s hide into strips, dip them into the sacrificial blood, and take to the streets where they would gently slap both women and crop fields with the goat hide strips.
Oh wow, it doesn’t get any more romantic than that, does it?
Having educated myself on what Valentine’s Day is really about, I am more convinced than ever that it is the epitome of the expression “Hallmark holiday,” a somewhat disparaging, albeit completely accurate, term to describe a holiday that exists primarily for commercial purposes. I know this to be true because I looked it up on Wikipedia.
Valentine’s Day as a romantic holiday was probably concocted during an intense, closed-door brainstorming session at the Kansas City headquarters of Hallmark Cards, Inc. The Hallmark executives were no doubt trying to figure out how to sell more cards during the lull between the Christmas and Easter holidays.
And that, my friends, is the true story about how Valentine’s Day in America was born. Of course, as Mark Twain once said, “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.” Hear hear, Mr. Twain!
Of course, when my wife reads this blog post, there is no doubt that, as Tom Purcell warned, I will have done something really stupid by posting this and will be desperate to make up.
Damn you Hallmark Cards, Inc. and your stupid Hallmark holiday.
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