Happy Chinese, Happy Valentine’s

Today is Valentine’s Day and the Chinese New Year. Happy! I made some fabric Valentine fortune cookies that turned out just perfect.

Now, I know there are people who hate this holiday (Valentine’s Day, not Chinese New Year). They mourn the fact that nobody loves them and they’re single on this day or that the day is all commercialized and that we shouldn’t need a special day to tell people we love them. Well, I have an answer for all of that. I’ll answer them backwards.

No, we don’t need a special day to tell people we love them, we should tell the people we love that we do every day, and more than say it, we should show it (“More Diligent and Concerned at Home” by Elder Bednar, General Conference, October 2009). But why not take another day out of the year to especially remember it? And yes, I said “another day” because I don’t know of anyone who only celebrates love on one day of the year. There’s birthdays and anniversaries that we remember people on. But you don’t hear people complaining that we shouldn’t need anniversaries to make us tell people we love them.

What isn’t commercialized these days? But does that mean someone is forcing you to buy stuff? Nope. Nobody is (although stores are going to try as hard as legally possible to make you do what they want). It is a holiday celebrating love, not a holiday celebrating the color red and other associated colors. I don’t know about you, but my relationships aren’t commercialized either. They are individual and personal. So how I celebrate Valentine’s day and the love I have for people is also individual and personal.

Now, to all the people who say that Valentine’s Day is only for people in mushy romantic relationships and if they don’t have one of those then it’s a day to wallow in self pity, wear all black, and thumb noses at happy people. Bah! Bah I say! Valentine’s Day, just like every other day, is exactly what you make of it. Make it miserable and you will be. Make it an opportunity to celebrate love in all of it’s forms (Greek has at least three types, why not pick one of those?) and you’ll find it full of love. Nobody is completely alone. Nobody is completely unloved. There are friends, family, all sorts of love in the world. There’s love that ranges from giving someone a cute paper valentine from a box of 30 to giving someone a kidney. (There’s the type of love for people who leave comments too.) Why ignore all the love around you just because you think you’re missing a single type of love?

So, Happy Valentine’s Day! I love you! :love:   :heart:

And have a great year of the Tiger!