CREDIT: STOCK IMAGES

So Valentine's Day happened — the day that pressures the guy to shower his gal with tributes of love in the form of flowers, candy, cards, stuffed bears, jewellery and the passcode to his bank card. Valentine's Day: a corporate holiday in the guise of a holy tribute to a revered Catholic dude who embodied the teachings of some Jewish dude. The Vatican liked this story, so, in the act of canonization, bestowed the title of Saint on the first dude, who later made a deal with Hallmark, and the rest is history.

Remember being a kid in grade school? Valentine's Day was such pressure: all day wondering if someone, anyone, would drop a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles card into the brown paper bag you so expertly decorated the day before. Do we still pause in apprehension before opening our metaphorical brown paper bag on Valentine's Day? What if there's nothing in there?

St. Valentine himself is the patron saint of beekeepers, engaged couples, epilepsy, fainting, greetings, happy marriages, lovers and plague, so if you are a young married man at a beekeepers convention who drank too many glasses of mead, fooled around with a fat beekeeper named Juan the beekeeper, had a seizure and passed out, St. Valentine is your man!

Can you just see that ancient clergy of chanting, vestment-adorned priests with funny hats and mind-messing incense debating who should take over the responsibility of being the patron saint of baby carrots, pebbles and beer nuts? Many a muumuuwearing priest came to blows debating the patron saint of hemorrhoid sufferers that day. St. Fiacre the twice beatified won that battle, with St. Alfonso a close second (he later opened a chain of successful pancake restaurants).

It isn't the canonization of men and women that bothers me, nor the fact that this theology means a lot to many people in the world. It is the corporate takeover of perfectly good and long-standing rituals. It is not love and togetherness that is celebrated on February 14, it is the stores that sell cards, balloons, flowers, stuffed bears, jewellery, condoms and an endless assortment of heartshaped packaged candy that are doing the celebrating. Go into a store on February 15 — there will be a bin containing leftover stock from Valentine's Day, and shelves newly stocked with cards, balloons, stuffed rabbits, chocolate eggs and an endless assortment of bunny-shaped packaged candy.

All of these corporate holidays pale in comparison to the granddaddy of all corporate holidays: Christmas. Other saints stand back in awe at the majesty and spending potential of St. Nicholas, the patron saint of prostitution! No joke, the patron saint of hookers is St. Nicholas. Pimp Santa.

Of course there are more saints than holidays. Given that corporations have taken over our holidays, it seems fitting to list some of the passed-over saints that would make much more sense in today's world: St. Bernadine: patron saint of bankers. St. Matthew the Apostle: patron saint of money managers. St. Mary Magdalene: patron saint of hairdressers. St. Guy of Anderlecht: patron saint of horned animals (although I think this is celebrated in the highlands of Scotland once in a while).

The Catholic Church names just over 10,000 saints to their catalogue. With that many holidays in the wings, the corporate engine has a lot of work ahead of them. I wonder who the patron saint of the corporate takeover of holidays is? St. Exxon? St. Walmart? St. Gates? Whoever it is, I hope the holiday includes alcohol. We will need the booze to distract us from the bills.
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