You can tell it’s February because there are Easter eggs in the shops. Tucked next to them are the flowery boxes of chocs for Mother’s Day and, of course, the red-wrapped Valentine’s Day junk – sorry, gifts – that have been on display since 26 December
By mid-February they’ll be hauling out the Halloween decorations just to get us prepared for the next big and pointless onslaught on our wallets.
Now, I will admit that because we human beings are a zillion times more selfish than we should be, we do need a little nudge now and then to show appreciation for the important people in our lives.
Yet there’s something about this enforced spending on tat at more and more tenuously connected celebrations through the year that just makes me want to rebel and refuse to take part in it.
Take the misery that is Valentine’s Day – no, really, please take it; I’ve had enough.
If you’re newly single, 14 February is the worst day of the year. And if you’re in a relationship, it’s a minefield. As with Christmas you’re trying to second-guess how much the other half will spend and if you should match it. Then, if they forget the day it’s the end of the world, and possibly also your relationship.
In a rocky relationship, you might be agonising over which would be kinder: to dump them before, after or even during Valentine’s Day. There are no winners on this day. Only losers.
Somebody should create a range of anti-Valentine’s Day cards that uses the rhyming couplet:
“Roses are red, violets are blue,
This card was expensive, and so are you.”
Mother’s Day on 11 March also has huge potential for fraught emotions – and wallet lightening – as hotels and restaurants double prices for Mothering Sunday, and sisters shout down the phone at thoughtless brothers who, yet again, fail even to send a card to their long-suffering mum.
There’s even Grandparents’ Day now, launched (of course) in America. In the UK it’s on 7 October – just in case you were looking for another reason to feel guilty about something. It isn’t yet a major spending fest in the UK, but give it time. Soon they’ll be offering us special, double-priced ‘Grandparents’ Afternoon Tea’ in posh hotels or discounted Stannah stairlifts through the summer until we relent in October and buy anything to make sure we still get presents at Christmas.
Of course, all of these days can be turned to your advantage with a bit of planning. For example, if you’re trying to get a message to the crumblies about their choice of presents to you over the years, send them a card with this message inside:
“Thank you granny for the toys and sweets, With the buckets and spades I really was stunned, But couldn’t you have given me financial treats, As there’s nothing more delicious than a fat trust fund. (Smiley face, kiss, kiss, love, the grandkids.)”
At the bottom of my irritation and rebellion at these ‘special days’ is probably the shame they engender about my behaviour on the other 354 days of the year to the people who are the most important to me.
What we should do – and this would pull the rug from under the marketeers – is to show appreciation, in little and large ways, for the beloved people in our lives every day – not just shove it all meaninglessly into one artificially created celebration once a year. Imagine that. Being kind, grateful and generous to our dad, our spouse, our gran and so on, at least once, every single day of the year.
Wow. Could we manage it?
It would be like having that Christmas spirit of peace and good will to all throughout the year, even when we’re not stuffing our faces with sprouts and mince pies. It’s a tall order for a race that is so self-obsessed, it is happily destroying the planet and its atmosphere for future generations on a daily basis.
But having lost a few people very close to me in the last year, I wish that this startling revelation had dawned on me much earlier. That it really is important to keep in touch regularly with the ones you love – and even the ones you just like. That people you see every day – who may even have given birth to you – can’t necessarily read your mind and don’t always know how much you love them. That the smallest of gifts for no reason, the quick hug and little thank you, can mean the world.
That would make every day a special day, and would probably help start to mend our planet if we really went about doing it properly.
So let’s celebrate like that, people. The ‘special day’ is dead. Long live ‘special days’.
JASMINE BIRTLES is a financial journalist and founder of MoneyMagpie.com. Email her at columnists@moneywise.co.uk
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