Quick Valentine Takes

1. Historian Alice Sharp begs everyone to stop spreading spurious stories about the origin of Valentine's Day.

It’s tempting to say that these stories don’t matter. We want, after all, to teach people that marriage is important, and it makes a nice story. Let’s not fall into that, however. Christianity is a faith that makes a historical claim—that God became man and lived with humanity, in a specific culture and empire and year. We don’t need to rely on bad history to teach a lesson, nor do we want to undermine our historical claims by ignoring what we can say. Not every historical question will have a tidy answer of cause and effect. The story of St. Valentine and love, however, gives us a picture of a world in which the saints offered a sanctification of the calendar itself, marking the seasons and the days—even days given over to the most secular of pleasures.

2. Meanwhile, in Heaven, St. Valentine longs to hear the end of it.

3.  It just don't get any more romantic than being rickrolled by the talented Gunhild Carling.



4. Give that special lady in your life the Solomon treatment.

5. ...You know what, my dears? Five takes is about all I can muster for Valentine's Day, a holiday I actually care little about. But if you do care about it, but want to make like you don't because you really ought to be above all that, and then find yourself hurt because your significant other takes you at your word that you want nothing, Simcha Fisher has some wise words.

Several years ago, I revealed to my husband that I actually kind of like Valentine’s Day.  This is despite all the times I told him that I hated it, it’s lame and stupid, and a made-up, over-commercialized saccharine-fest invented by Hallmark and Big Floral.  For so many years, the poor man had been wondering why, every February 14, I would say I wasn’t mad at him, while I was clearly mad at him. 

I was mad, you see, because everyone else was getting flowers and riding in heart-shaped hot air balloons and– I don’t know, eating hot fudge sundaes that turned out to have a tiny violin player at the bottom.  And here I was getting nothing, which is what I repeatedly told him I wanted. Pray for me:  I’m married to a monster. 

Anyway, I finally realized that it doesn’t make me defective to enjoy flowers — and that if it’s artificial to suddenly act romantic on a nationally-specified day — well, we need all the help we can get.  Alarm clocks are artificial, too, but if they didn’t automatically remind us of what we ought to do, we’d be in big trouble.  So, yeah, I asked him to get me flowers, and take the plastic wrap and price tag off before giving them to me, and he will, and I’m going to like them.  Whew, that wasn’t so hard!

6. Enjoy your chocolate!