Holiday commercialism-- when you can’t beat it, eat it!
By Karlie Baker
IV Leader Staff, Feb 15, 2007
I am one to rear my head at holidays. Generally, I
distrust any occasion that involves decorative lighting. The only thing I find
more distasteful are holidays that are disguised as religious celebrations.
Sure, I bet they started out that way. But until somebody
explains to me what a morbidly obese guy or eggs have to do with Jesus, I will
remain cynical. Holidays do not seem bona fide to me. Valentine’s Day exceeds
this rule.
It does not run with the commercialized holiday pack because
its reliance on materialism far surpasses any other. Valentine’s Day does not
hide behind a façade of virtue.
It’s commercial through and through, blatantly truthful about
the fact that its only purpose is to purchase candy, flowers, and cards… for
those you love, of course. People are pressured to express themselves in a
rather grandiose fashion on the 14th.
They can say, “I love you,” any old day, but this is really
the only time of the year you have to exemplify your feelings through caramels.
An entire aisle in every story is stocked with calorie-laden proclamations of
love. Every candy company cashes in on the momentous occasion, and there’s no
reason not to enjoy that. Gorge away!
Get together with your significant other, pop in a movie, and
put a box of chocolates to shame. When you gain a few extra pounds from your
Valentine’s present, that’s okay. I think it’s why they’re called “love
handles.”
And those little chalk hearts with the sayings are the
perfect expression of affection for the emotionally repressed or faint of
courage. Need a hug but can’t verbalize it? There’s a heart for that. See a cute
guy and want to let him know without shouting it to the rest of the world? Grab
a candy heart. The “fax me” heart even makes it possible to bring interoffice
affections to light.
Never before has such a multi-purpose candy existed, save the
Pixy Stick, whose wrapper also serves as a spitball launcher in times of duress.
Valentine’s Day’s purpose does us another service by being celebrated in the
smack-dab middle of the winter doldrums.
People often do not realize the greatness of giving
perishable items such as candy as opposed to the typical Christmas sweater. The
14th is not the only day that candy-eaters reap the benefits of red-boxed candy
from their loved ones. For a few weeks before and at least a month afterward,
there is always something to snack on.
It should be renamed “The One Day You Get Candy That Will Get
You Through The Long Haul of Winter.” After all, nothing cures that feeling of
wanting to pitch yourself off a snow-covered cliff quite like a
chocolate-induced euphoria.
One of these days St. Valentine might be celebrated in a way
that is befitting to his life, but until then he will remain, as Jim Gaffigan
put it, “the patron saint of over-priced greeting cards.” Thanks, at the very
least, for giving us a reason to eat junk food, St. Valentine.
And even better, when it goes on clearance!