My Valentine's Tradition
Growing up I had it in my head that if you're single you're supposed to hate Valentines Day. That's how all the grown up girls acted, so I felt like I was supposed to do the same. But honestly deep inside I didn't hate it, I liked it. It could be my 4th favorite holiday (1.Christmas 2. Thanksgiving 3. My Birthday). Boy or no boy I liked this holiday filled with hearts. Now I will confess that I do believe that Hallmark has totally blown this holiday up to be way bigger of an idea than it really is but I wish a new spin would get spun on it!
So here is the history on Valentine's Day....The original "St. Valentine" was just a lithurgical celebration of one or more early Christian saint named Valentinus .All the modern romantic connotations were added several centuries later by poets. Several martyrdom stories were invented for the various Valentines that belonged to 14th February, and added to later martyrologies.This celebration was deleted from the General Roman Calendar of saints in 1969 by Pope Paul VI. The day first became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages ,when the tradition of courtly love flourished. By the 15th century, it had evolved into an occasion in which lovers expressed their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionery ,and sending greeting cards (known as "valentines"). *Thank you Wikipedia! So even though we call this a Hallmark made up holiday, it's really not. Although I'm sure they had a hand in to making it a bigger deal than it originally was.
But to me why does this day have to be about that ONE someone?? Do you not love more than one person in your life? I mean there are 4 about to be 5 that mean more than me in my life. I cry at that thought of how much I love them. Yes it's my family. And I'm sure if I were seriously dating someone but for sure if I were married that guy would be in that same category with my family. But it doesn't mean that I'm going to start over looking my family come Valentine's Day because some people get the idea that it's just a couples holiday. So anyway years ago (before my discovery that I really didn't hate V-day) I started a tradition of dinner out with my single friends. It started off as an anti-Valentine's day/ anti-love dinner. But now I realize it's not anti love because I'm not an anti-love person. I love people and I love love. But I'm also the kind of girl that isn't going to settle and I'm pretty independent, so if I'm not with someone that's okay (which I know isn't a normal girl attitude). I know I'm better off being single for the right reasons than to be with someone for the wrong reasons (like being lonely). Now my little group has changed from year to year but I love this little tradition. I love my friends almost as much as I love my family so what better way to spend Valentine's Day!
On Valentine's Day this year at work as a co-worker walked in to our office I greeted them by saying "Kisses, Happy Valentine's Day" and would hand them 2 Hershey kisses! I love being able to do little surprises like that. Then this year Morgane, Blair, Mariette and I went to dinner and a movie. Still traditional Valentine's day activities just more people going than two. And yes this year was just girls but we have had single boys join us on this yearly tradition before. We started at Chili's for a lovely dinner where I gave each girl a box of chocolates and a card. In the card I thanked them for being my Valentine and how blessed I was to have each one of them in my life. After stuffing ourselves we headed to the movies to see This Is War. Super cute romantic comedy. I believe we all agreed that Reese is one of our favorite actresses and that we're gonna have to buy the movie once it comes out (even if we do go and see it again while it's still on at the theaters). Our next little adventure took us to Wal-Mart...I was on a mission for a project for work and my lovely dates wouldn't let me shop by myself since it was so late at night and didn't want to take the chances of me getting kidnapped, haha, aren't they too sweet!
See to me Valentine's Day isn't supposed to be about sharing and showing you love to just one person. While if you are in a relationship and even married yes you should show love to that person (but also you should be telling that person every day NOT just one day a year) that shouldn't be the only person. Show and tell everyone how much you love them and do this all the time. But if you are a single girl on Valentine's day, don't fret there are tons of girls single on Valentine's Day. Find some girls and put together your own little fun night or come and join mine! We need to stop focusing that this holiday is based off of loving one person after all we are supposed to love ALL. I'll put a "religious" spin on it. God tells us to love all. "This is my command:Love each other"-John 15:17 And in John 14:15 He tells us that if we love Him we will keep his commands....which goes back to the last verse I wrote! "And now these three remain:faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love" 1 Corinthians 13 and in Matthew 19:19 "love your neighbor as yourself" He tells us to love others as much as we love ourselves. And living in the self centered world that we live in these days we should be loving our fellow people a WHOLE lot, haha! If you search love in the Bible you'll come up with a TON of verses because like these verses tell us it is His greatest command and love is the greatest. It doesn't tell us to just love one but love all! And I'm not going to change that just for a holiday.
