Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner.  And, once again, the commercials for Valentine cards, flowers, jewelry…and even “heart-shaped” pizza are airing nonstop.  Much to my chagrin, there are two Valentine’s Day commercials that are sort of growing on me.  Good grief, I’m now getting emotionally uplifted from commercials!  Those copywriters must be working overtime.

The first is Jane Seymour’s “keep your heart open” ad for Kay Jewelers.  It shows her dreamily painting and designing her open-heart necklace, and telling that her mom always told her to “keep your heart open, and love will find a way.”  I know.  Kind of hokey.  But it actually touched something in me, and made me feel a little happier.  You know; sage wisdom from mom, dreamily designing and creating,  love, hope, and…jewelry.

The second is, of course…drum roll please…Hallmark!  This one is not overly schmaltzy, it just seems regular. Like for us normal folk who actually have lives in which we work, raise families, and keep house.  But something in it is so touching.  A little boy asks his mom who she’s going to give a valentine to…not to dad, but to her best friend who is always there, etc.  The mom tells him that would be dad, too.  The husband is so goofily disheveled, waggling his eyebrows at his wife putting the groceries away.  No candlelit dinner, no walking hand-in-hand on the beach, no gazing into each others eyes.  Just happily dealing with normal day-to-day life.  You can just tell they are warm, genuine, fun, and are a team.  Incredibly romantic.

It’s sort of weird that there is this one day where everyone is “forced” to be romantic.  But who can resist a holiday that is all about love?  We can all be reminded of the words from Jackie DeShannon’s song, which have a lot of truth to them:

What the world needs now,
Is love, sweet love,
It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.
What the world needs now,
Is love, sweet love,
No, not just for some but for everyone.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

~Marilyn