Valentine’s Day; “Love is in the air” has become more of “money is in the cash registers.” The holiday that is meant to celebrate love and romance has been lost to the world of commercialism. The “holiday of love” has brainwashed people into thinking that a romantic gesture means mandatory expenditure. Rather than taking time out to create an individual and creative romantic gesture for their special someone, people often feel the need to waste a ton of money on non-meaningful, trite gifts.

What most people are unaware of is that this “holiday of love” has completely changed from its original purpose. Valentine’s Day is most commonly referred to as a day to honor Saint Valentine, who ultimately gave up his life to protect the sanctity of marriage. Unfortunately, the holiday is now only recognized as a day to spend money on overpriced and overused attempts of “romantic gestures.”

Unfortunately, during the last several decades, Valentine’s Day has truly lost its sole intention; to celebrate the sanctity of marriage and the true capacity of the heart. The commercial business has taken over the once-romantic holiday. With constant commercials for stores like K-Jewelers and Jared running, the pressure to spend money on gifts increases. These commercials along with radio adds and chick flicks featuring bratty girls judging each other based on how nice their Valentine’s Day gifts from their boyfriends, have all added to this false perception of having to spend excessively on this holiday. Instead of being able to show romantic gestures to loved ones in a unique manner, many people buy into the pressure to spend tons of money on prosaic gifts like over-priced flowers, chocolates and jewelry.

According to National Retail Federation’s Valentine’s Day Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, over 15.7 billion dollars was spent on Valentine’s Day last year, over half of which was spent on cards, candy and flowers. In the midst of the second largest recession in U.S. history, people should be more frugal and less afraid to give a creative, less costly gift. Well thought out gifts are a much more favorable option than simply dumping money on your significant other.

This habit of spending money on unoriginal gifts and feeling forced to buy into these “romantic” habits starts at a very early age. In elementary school, kids are always told to buy candies or cards for everybody in their class because “everybody is special.” By forcing these Valentine’s Day traditions on kids, they are conditioned into thinking that they must spend money to make a romantic gesture and they lose the true meaning of the holiday; showing your special loved one that you care about them. Instead of focusing on the material side of love and the holiday, they should preach about the true meaning of love to young students. Love isn’t about how much money you can spend on each other, its about caring about the other person more than you care about yourself. Its about devoting yourself entirely to someone and enjoying the little things.

Valentine’s Day has become all about the trappings of romance rather than romance itself. It has created extremely high standards for people to show their love. For some reason, people interpret celebrating their love for each other as getting dolled up, going out to a nice dinner and buying gifts for their significant others. But, showing your true appreciation for love doesn’t have to be so expensive and flashy; it can just entail spending time with and expressing your true feelings to a loved one.

This doesn’t necessarily mean you should not celebrate the holiday and give each other gifts. It just means that you should take more time out and give a meaningful, individual gift to that certain someone who you care about.