Yeah… you read that right. Sure, there are some people who think Christmas is the evil, capitalist holiday, but those people haven’t really considered Valentine’s day.

Let’s compare: At Christmas, everyone gets to participate, even if they’re not married or romantically involved, whereas on Valentine’s day, only lovers get gifts. At Christmas, you get many gifts from many people and the good givers make up for the bad ones, whereas on Valentine’s day you get one gift from one person (if any at all) and if your lover is a lousy gift giver you’re stuck with it. At Christmas, the amount of thought that goes into a gift has meaning, whereas on Valentine’s Day it’s all about extravagance. It’s okay to return a Christmas gift for something in your size, whereas a Valentine’s Day gift in the wrong size has horrible implications. Do I need to go on?

What else? Valentine’s Day is cheesy and fake. Let’s take a moment to think about what actually happens on Valentine’s Day and how insulting it really is.

Flowers
Guys who never buy flowers for their lover will suddenly be rushing out en masse to buy red roses. Why? What about a red rose makes it good on Valentine’s Day? Hey fellas… did you know that most of your women don’t even like roses? Why not take a moment to learn what she actually likes, and give her that on Valentine’s Day? Maybe it’s carnations, maybe it’s irises… a good friend of mine goes ga-ga over gerbera daisies. Don’t give the same cheesy red rose that everyone else is giving.

Greeting Cards
Millions of men and women will flock to Hallmark stores and pay $5.95 for the right to sign their name to someone else’s declaration of love. Millions more will go to Walgreen’s because they’re too lazy to go to Hallmark, and millions more will go to Wal-Mart where the selection is lousy but the cards are cheap. For what? For someone else to do all the work of declaring their love, and writing it down on a card that you can then give away with your name on it. Seriously… if you love someone, you should be able to tell them so on your own, without the card.

Chocolate
This is the only Valentine’s Day gift that actually makes any sense to me. Why? Because chocolate contains phenylethylamine, which is the same chemical released by the brain when someone experiences feelings of love. Therefore chocolate is a very logical gift, because the chocolate can reliably produce the effect that you desire without you having to do any of the work! It’s brilliant! I mean, why go to the trouble of being charming and attractive when you can just feed a chemical to your loved one? Hmmm…. if only Pfizer or GlaxoSmithKline could come up with an over-the-counter phenylethylamine pill…

Dinner
It will be impossible to find an open table at a restaurant this Thursday, because all those same millions of people will have reservations days in advance, so that they can spend even more money trying to prove they love each other. But how does an expensive dinner prove anything? Paying someone else to do all the work is not romantic. You want to prove your love? Cook something yourself. Or, for a really top-notch Valentine’s Day dinner, cook it together. Bump into each other in the kitchen. Get in each other’s way. Have fun. And save the money, too.

Jewelry
This is, by far, the worst of all Valentine’s Day gifts. This is the uber-expensive gift that a man gives to his female lover to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that his love for her is directly proportionate to the size of his credit line. How do I love thee? Let me count the receipts.

Look, people. This day is all wrong. What you should be doing on Valentine’s Day is cooking dinner together, eating it with candles lit, and then snuggling up together on the couch to watch a sappy movie together. That’s it. Stop trying so hard to make it so big, because in doing so, you are taking all the actual meaning out of it and turning it into a show of extravagance.

Cards, flowers, and jewelry are all nice gifts, but all of them mean more when given on some other day. Why not give her a card because it’s the first Tuesday of the month? How about a diamond necklace as a Happy May 30th present? These gifts should NEVER be given on any holiday — and especially not on the Devil’s Holiday.

In the times long before Christ and before Capitalism, there was a Yule festival. During the Yule festival, the men of the village would go out and cut down the biggest tree they could find and bring it to the village square, and start it burning. They did this on the Winter Solstice, and kept it going for 12 days, until the new year. During this festival, the people of the village would gather together for great feasts. They would sing, and dance, and give each other gifts. It was a celebration of spirit.

To be honest, I don’t know if that’s all true, of if I’ve just pieced together the better portions of a thousand different stories into something that sounds blissful in my mind. Maybe I remember it exactly as I’ve read it, or maybe I remember it as I want to believe it was. Either way, it sounds pretty nice to me.

I consider myself lucky to be surrounded by people — mostly family — who are not afraid to challenge conventional thinking and do things differently, and Christmas is no exception. Some of the people around me are non-religious, and non-traditional, and prefer not to participate in what they see as nothing more than a capitalism holiday. Some are traditional, and they don’t care about the history of the season, they only care about what it means to them: time spent with family. Some are very religious, and choose to focus on the story of Christ rather than on the story of Santa Claus. There are even some who have abolished the idea of Christmas altogether, professing that taking part in any way is entirely blasphemous to their faith. (Fortunately, those in the last group do not have kids!)

I don’t consider myself to be a big believer in tradition, and anyone who has read my web site knows I’m not terribly religious. But I consider it to be a benefit that I have people around me who are. I have heard numerous arguments for and against Christmas, and have been presented with many reasons and justifications and explanations and theories. If nothing else, it has given me a wealth of perspective in determining my own interpretation of the holiday.

For me, Christmas is a sentiment. It’s not a holiday, and it’s not a holy day. It’s a feeling, not a reason to shop. It’s bundling up in warm clothes, hearing happy music, seeing your breath, and thinking about others instead of myself. It’s snow, and gloves, and warm drinks, and fun gatherings, and National Lampoons Christmas Vacation.

I enjoy giving gifts, but I feel no obligation to do so. I give gifts to show my appreciation for the blessings I receive from those around me… not to prove my loyalty or sentiment. I put a lot of thoughts into my gifts, because I want to show that I have thought about the recipient. You can’t replace thought with dollars. No extravagance of price can make up for the lack of consideration.

I also enjoy receiving gifts, but I don’t ever expect them. Not from anyone. In the same way that I don’t give out of obligation, I don’t want to receive a gift out of perceived obligation. And your price tags won’t impress me… only the thought you put into showing me what I mean to you.

I’m not rich, but I am thankful to say that I can pretty much afford to buy whatever I want. And since I don’t have many wants, I generally do so. I like that, because it allows me to think about what really matters at the holidays. Giving, and receiving of gifts can be fun, and even sentimental, but what really matters is being with the people who really matter — and not just for one day.

After thousands of years, we still have Christmas trees and Yule logs. We still have 12 days of Christmas, leading into the new year. We still have gatherings and feasts and gifts. Sure, many of the details have changed — we now have Santa Clause, and Scrooge, and Trading Places — but the warm sentiment is still there.