Embracing Commercialism

Valentines Day is not everyone’s favorite day. Many have a love hate relationship with Valentines Day.  I agree that it’s not nice that restaurants jack up the prices on Valentines Day and require you to order from a set menu and florist double the price of flowers.  With that said we have a choice we can despise the holiday and be a cynic, say it’s just a “Hallmark Holiday,” and complain about commercialism or we can embrace it and join in on the fun.  It takes more energy to hate then to love.  So, I choose to embrace the sometimes-ridiculous cupids that you see hanging in the windows before Christmas and the over priced trinkets with hearts and sappy sayings.   Who doesn’t like a little romance?  It’s the one time a year that I embrace getting flowers deliver to me at work.  Or shall I say if I’m in a relationship I EXPECT flowers to be delivered to my work on Valentines Day.  I know it’s over priced, but I deserve this little jester from the one I love for everything I do for him all year long.  I don’t expect to be taken out to a fancy restaurant for dinner as I don’t drink alcohol and all the set menus include it and on my special diet it’s just tough to eat out.  But, I do expect a good home cooked meal and I’ll even help making it. 

This year I’m in-between relationships so I wasn’t really expecting anything for Valentines Day.  So, when I went down stairs on Valentines Day this year I was happily surprised to see a balloon attached to a little Happy Valentines Sign, hand decorated.  My roommate went to a lot of work to surprise me, as I’m usually the first one downstairs in the morning.  I felt even more spoiled that evening when he made me lobster tail and steak for dinner.  I have to add I loved my gift too and all the effort he put into decorating the gift box.  It was exactly what I wanted.  There is a funny story to that as well.

For his birthday I asked him what he wanted for his birthday and he said he wanted red reflective snowboarding goggles.  I was busy with work and overwhelmed with life so I told him to do the research and let me know exactly what he wanted.  Well, he did the same approach with me for Valentines Day. He suggested Jewelry and I told him I like hearts so he suggested a Ruby heart pendant.  We went on line and looked at a few, but it’s really hard to tell what they look like so he sent me to the store to look around. I found one at Kohl’s that I liked.  I told him and he went on their website and picked 3 and to my surprise one of those 3 was the one that I liked.  I have to say he has really good taste.

I have to say that he was even more thrilled with his gift.   I got him something that he’s been wanting for over a decade, but never wanted to fork out the money to get. And it wasn’t that it was an expensive gift, it was just more of a want then a need.  So I made extra brownie points in his book, with the least expensive gift I will probably every buy.