Down with Valentine's Day!

I was considering doing a Valentine's Day column, about how to go green on V-Day, but I decided against it. What would that column have said? Buy these chocolates, not these ones. Buy the organic cotton sexy underwear. Send a card on recycled paper. At the end, it's buy, buy, buy. Buy to show your love. For the first year, I truly feel that Valentine's Day is all about making us buy stuff.

I know. You're going to say, Duh!

But I always felt that Valentine's Day was for making grand gestures to signify romantic devotion. Too bad, these grand gestures always involve us buying stuff that we don't really need or want. It's even gotten to the point that people give Valentine's gifts to friends, acquaintances, co-workers, our moms. It's insane. What does it mean?

Isn't there a better way to show that we love our partners without buying meaningless stuff? What else can we do? I welcome suggestions.