Valentine’s Day, like many holidays, has become overly commercialized. This season, stores began selling merchandise on December 26th, many weeks before the actual holiday will occur. Now, I’m a holiday lover, but really? Of all the holidays, I feel like Valentine’s Day, a day we should all be showing love, has become a day to show off instead.

As a child, we passed Valentine’s cards out to all the kids in our school classes. Some of them contained candy and some didn’t. That was fine. It was all about what was written on the card. I remember spending hours carefully selecting each message for the recipient. After all, I wouldn’t want to accidentally declare my love to a boy I didn’t have a crush on. And if I did have a crush on a boy, I didn’t want to make it too obvious.

Last year, my children brought home the usual Valentines, but never even looked at the cards. It was all about the candy. Gone are the days of a conversation heart or two tucked inside a tiny Valentine envelope. Now, some overachieving students (cough…parents) are instead giving entire bags stuffed with candy and gifts to each student in the class. Where will the madness end?

I’d much prefer a thoughtful homemade card or letter or a loving gesture. I’d also rather spend time with my hubby than have him try to outdo the neighbors by buying me larger bouquets of flowers and bigger boxes of chocolates than everyone else. Am I alone in this thinking? Tell me, what do you really think of the next holiday?