Do you celebrate a Valentine Day today? Do you have specific traditions to do so?

28 comments

1. both in Poland & Ireland it seems to be just standard western Valentine Day have not noticed anything specific to either of countries

   personally – i’m forever alone so it doesn’t impact me in anyway

2. I do, it’s my favourite special day. Growing up, my dad bought flowers and we had a nice family dinner with lots of treats. Nowadays I just celebrate with my husband, usually just dinner, wine and cosy time together.

   Happy Valentine’s to you too!

3. Personally no not really… I’m so unromantic 🫣 I’m the woman in the relationship but my boyfriend reckons I’m more of the stereotypical man in these situations.

   In general people do celebrate with cards, dinner, flowers, presents etc. and there’s usually stuff on like nights out & stuff for people who are single.

   Random Valentines fact: St Valentine’s remains are located in Dublin in Whitefriar Street Church

4. There’s people who celebrate it with a romantic dinner or going on a date, and there’s hearts in store windows and so on, but no traditions as St Valentine is a fairly new thing here.

   The traditional day for people in love is *la Mocadorà* on St Denis (9th of October). Guys give girls marzipan wrapped in a handkerchief (*mocador*), which the girl then wears around her neck.

   Edit: also, the marzipan looks like fruits and vegetables, save for the two bigger pieces (*tronador i piuleta*) which are… [symbolic](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MkHvoh5t3p4/VCl5w2jO0_I/AAAAAAAA7fA/Nf3Ki4GxNrI/s1600/002.JPG)

5. Many people celebrate it here… going out to a restaurant for example,or buying flowers for their partner.

   Personally neither she nor I are very interested in San Valentino,so we don’t usually do anything special 😉

   We have a lot of other stuff around this period.. birthdays, anniversaries, even name days..so St Valentine’s tends to get overlooked.

6. Here it’s called ystävänpäivä (day of friendship), so you don’t need to be in love to give/get cards or little gifts.

7. Finland: it feels like a half-assed import, where the original idea has been somewhat messed up, partially because of giving it a weird name. The Finnish name for it is “ystävänpäivä” which translates as “friend’s day”. So it doesn’t point to romance, and it would be feel weird to give your buddy a card or flowers.

8. My husband and I make our favourite dish (lemon chicken risotto) and play video games together, but that’s our personal tradition.

9. We don’t celebrate it with all our loved ones here, only romantic partners. It’s common to wish a Happy Valentine’s Day to other people but not give them gifts.

   Offering flowers and going to the restaurant for dinner is standard among couples to celebrate it.

10. It’s just the same as in most places here, a heavily commercialised day for romance and love. A great day for florists, chocolatiers, restaurants and Hallmark Cards.

11. I normally wouldn’t, but me and my partner accidentally went on one of our very first dates on Valentine’s Day (we agreed on Thursday for cinema and dinner and later realised Thursday was the 14th of February). So now we still don’t really care about all the flowers and hearts and chocolate, but we do go for dinner and a movie each year.

    It’s not a very traditional day in Norway and its mostly between romantic partners. It mostly feels like a day for the chocolate and flower industry and it seems like you either feel obligated to go all in and celebrate with your romantic partner or you totally ignore it.

12. Well, couples do but it’s a bit too clichéd and sentimental for my liking.
    Still, we exchanged cards this morning and it was nice.

    I used to live in an excessively touristy part of the “City of Love” 🙄 and it frequently felt like it was Valentines Day when it wasn’t. Clusters of lovey-dovey foreign couples had a tendency to spawn like somebody was using cheat codes. That probably also explains my attitude a little.

13. Personally, I don’t take it too seriously. I made a post on my Facebook profile wishing everyone a happy Valentine’s Day. I might send my Mom a text message later. Flowers or chocolates I would only give to a girlfriend but I am currently single.

    My cousin takes it a bit more seriously. For many years we were on skiing holiday with extended family around Valentine’s Day and he would always give a single rose to every female in the group.

    Generally, flower shops do make a lot more business on Valentine’s Day than normally.

14. Today is my birthday so the popularity of St. Valentine’s used to low key annoy me because it was quite difficult to find a spot to celebrate if I felt like it: every table in every café seemed to be occupied by romantic dates even on a weekday. 😅 I don’t remember when I started to ignore the “specialty” of the day itself and just going to mom’s place over the next weekend with a cake and a bottle of sparkling wine to celebrate her instead but it I like it better this way.

    My birthday of 2020 was the best though. My then boyfriend and I decided to meet in Vienna for a long weekend (we were long distance) and he asked whether I’d be able to bring a dress. Turns out, he got us tickets to a Mozart Ensemble concert at https://mozarthaus.at/en/sala-terrena/ and it was amazing.

15. Not officially. It’s not our traditional holiday so we don’t have specific traditions for valentine day. But we live in globalised society so valentine day found it´s way here too. So it’s individual do couples do celebrate and some couples don´t.

    I personally usually at least buy flowers for my girlfriend or something like that.

16. Quite romantically, I hid the present in our flat before I left* and called her this morning. This year it was a rose gold pendant “tempus fugit, amor manet.”

    *I’m about 1300km away from our flat, in Östergötlands in Sweden and have been away for a week and will be away for at least another week. I’m terrible at this.

17. Some people celebrate st.Valentine’s, but most celebrate “Trifon Zarezan”, which is the national day of wine and winemakers, so people get smashed drunk.

18. Many Swedes celebrate Valentine’s Day. It’s called *alla hjärtans dag* in Swedish, which means “All Hearts’ Day”. The traditions are pretty much the same as in the US, and many Swedes view it as a tradition imported from America. Some shun it because of this, or because they view it as just a commercial ploy. I don’t know about percentages, but it’s safe to say the tradition is commonly practised.

    Not by me, though. My partner and I put the emphasis on our relationship’s anniversary instead, plus more spontaneous gestures. This isn’t uncommon either.

19. I’ve never really cared for it. Don’t think any of my boyfriends did either. I guess if I dated a guy who did care I wouldn’t *mind* but I wouldn’t wanna be expected to buy presents or do something big

20. Yes, it has become quite a trend. Couples buy small gifts to each other (nothing too expensive), invite their date on a dinner, etc. Flower shops also benefit from this day.

    I have no one to buy gifts to or celebrate it with, so i buy some chocolate to myself 🙂 Because what’s better than loving yourself?

21. Most people celebrate it in Hungary. It’s the same as everywhere else: hearts, cards, flowers, dinners and chocolate.

    I feel rather iffy about it though.

    On the one hand it’s a nice idea, but on the other hand I absolutely abhorr the commercialization of it. You can’t escape these holidays without getting flooded by ads from a bunch of fucking corporations insisting that the holiday *cannot* be complete without buying their crap services or products. It’s absolutely sickening.

    As a result I try my best to downplay such days and put more effort into being thoughtful and romantic on completely random weekends or weekdays because that just feels more special than being peer-pressured into it by literal jackals who are only after your money and want to cheapen human existence as a whole.

    Anyway we’re going to a fancy dinner with my girlfriend.

22. No. To me it seems like a day for people who are in a relationship and since I am not in one, I don’t celebrate it. Sometimes me and my single friends throw a ‘galentines’ dinner or something but otherwise I don’t celebrate. I would tho if I were in a relationship.

23. We actually have a romanian love holiday on the 24th of feb, so there’s a mix of

    – people who celebrate valentine’s day
    – people who celebrate the romanian one and complain about how we appropriate others’ culture, though i think they are fewer
    – people who don’t care about either
    – people who like both
    – companies that figured out they can commercialise both

    Personally, i don’t care about it, but I’m not gonna hate on people who like to celebrate it.

24. My gl HATES Valentine’s Day, so I’m saving myself a gift :). We prefer to celebrate only our anniversary, although we arent the norm: most couples give each other a small gift, especially flowers for women, and also go out to dinner together.

    I have noticed among my co-workers and friends that they prefer to receive flowers that can be dried, to make centrepieces and decorations.

25. We do, but no particular traditions. My husband and I exchange something small, like cards and some sweets, and we try to do something fun together. I usually bake something a bit more elaborate than usual as a treat for both of us.

26. Depends how I’m feeling that year.

    Am I single? Then the world is an emotionless ball of rock flying through space with no rhyme or reason, and inhabited by a violent species.

    Am I in a relationship? Usually it’s flowers or candy, maybe a nice dinner.

    Tonight my *maaaan* and I are going to his for stoemp (sausages and mashed potatoes) and cuddles and wine and possible underwear. He doesn’t like sweet stuff so maybe I’ll bring some dark chocolate for dessert.

27. My previous boyfriend cared about such things, so we went to a café that day and probably exchanged gifts… I don’t remember actually. My current boyfriend doesn’t care at all and it’s perfect for me. I am not a romantic person. Also, choosing and buying present is stressful for me, so all celebrations such as birthdays of relatives are like a common enemy for us. So I am happy we are not creating additional stress to each other at least

28. It’s mostly a day for the shops here in Denmark. They desperately want us to adopt the day, so they can sell more candy and whatnot. If it wasn’t being advertised so heavily, most Danes would never know it existed.