Valentine’s Day is fast approaching. The shops have stacks of cards and heart shaped decorations out. Yet in a recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald the marketing director of Hallmark, Amanda Del Prete, said, ‘We have had some women say if they want to get an anniversary card from their husband, they have to buy it themselves and give it to them. I think a few people have slipped their husbands some Valentine’s cards as well.’ Doesn’t that defeat the purpose? If he can’t be bothered or forgets or isn’t interested in buying a card, then what’s the point?
In our house Mick usually makes our cards for special occasions. I wouldn’t dream of asking him to make me a Valentine’s Day card so I could give it to him, which amounts to the same idea as that above.
Yes, he makes a card to give me. I don’t have those skills to make one for him so I buy one for him, though I take a lot of care in finding one that says as close as possible to what I want to say. Or I might buy a small box of his favorite chocolates and put a little love note or poem with it. But that’s as far as it goes. We don’t make a big deal out of Valentines Day, though I did like Mary Ann’s suggestion.
To us our wedding anniversary is a far more important date and worthy of time spent hunting for that special present and, in my case, card that expresses something of what I feel. Together we enjoy a celebration of our marriage. In all the years we have been married Mick has never forgotten our anniversary. Neither have I. It is a special day for us.
Valentine’s Day may have originally been a time to send simple expressions of love like poems, flowers and later, cards, but now is just another day taken over by commercialism and cashed in on by florists, jewelers, restaurants and card and chocolate manufactures, in much the same way they have it taken over Christmas, Mother’s day etc and exploited the original concept. Would you agree? What do you do for Valentine’s Day?
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