FEBRUARY 14 is the day that is both dreaded and longed for, a day to celebrate love and romance and a day to show what price you put on that important person in your life.

Just to clarify, I enjoy Valentine's Day, I think it's sweet that there is a holiday built around the idea of expressing your love for the people around you and celebrating the relationships that we cherish, I simply dislike the consumerist holiday it has evolved into.

The origins of the day are difficult to pinpoint, with some historians believing the holiday traces from a Pagan festival called Lupercalia, and others to a Roman priest martyred in the Roman empire called Valentine (there were many).

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The celebrations stretch a couple of thousand years, at least; however, the consumerist side of February 14 is far more recent, with the first Valentine’s card being produced in 1913, a mere 111 years ago.

Every single year, more and more ways are created to capitalise on the holiday, such as Valentine’s cards for family members or your pet, and every single year it turns into a competition of how much you care about your partner based on what size of cuddly bear you are willing to buy them.

It teaches a lesson, in an increasingly materialistic world where we are encouraged to overconsume, that love can be bought or measured in money, that it means your partner simply doesn’t care if they don’t hand you a bouquet of roses larger than your head, a matter of obligation rather than a token of appreciation.

It is also incredibly expensive, according to a survey from Topcashback in 2023, one in five Brits said they would not celebrate the holiday due to financial constraints, with the cost-of-living crisis and all.

Essentially, it increases stress for literally everyone as you panic about how to get a better gift than you did for Christmas two months prior, and the ridiculously oversized cuddly toys end up in landfill or a charity shop, which will also eventually go into landfill.

Safe to say, I think we should be using alternative methods to express our love this Valentine's, for example, Emily Dickinson it up and write tens of poems about the same person.