by Gordon Hamilton

Created on: June 04, 2009   Last Updated: February 12, 2011

The cost of a gift can never be measured against the amount of love expressed, either on Valentine's Day or on any other special occasion, at any time of the year. Love is not something which can ever be defined or stated in monetary terms and therefore it is likely to be other factors which will determine the true value of any gift given on Valentine's Day.

The first and perhaps most important consideration when looking at the cost of any gift given or received on Valentine's Day is to look at the financial circumstances of the person presenting the gift. It stands to reason that the more affluent a person is, the more they are likely to be able to spend on the gift. This is not of course a written rule, merely a rule of thumb. If we expand on this to consider, however, whether a King giving his Queen a treasure chest full of jewels on Valentine's Day loves her more than the poor man presenting his wife with a bunch of wild flowers he hand-picked from a field, we can quite patently see that this is not the case. The two men may very well adore their wives equally; or quite possibly, the King is making an empty gesture, while the poor man is truly expressing his feelings.

We should also consider at this point the thought which a person puts in in to a gift given on Valentine's Day. If someone chooses to give the person whom they love a fairly inexpensive gift which they know or at least wholly believe that person will love and cherish - as opposed to a more expensive yet less desired alternative - we may say that the less expensive gift expresses a greater amount of love. This is simply because the person giving the gift has considered what is likely to please the recipient to be far more important than how much money they can afford to spend upon it.

Giving a gift on Valentine's Day is about one person expressing their love and affection for another. Love is essentially intangible, yet far more powerful than any amount of wealth a person may possess. If we try to equate, therefore, to any great extent, the expense spared or otherwise on a gift given on Valentine's Day, we merely detract from the importance and symbolism of the gesture. Instead, anyone giving or receiving a gift on Valentine's Day should focus only on their feelings for the other person, the motivation and the thought behind the gift, and consider the monetary price of the gift to be wholly incidental. In this way, both parties can focus on the true meaning of Valentine's Day and not be inappropriately distracted by irrelevancies.

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