Lets send Love across the Planet!
| Why do we celebrate Valentine’s Day? Let’s celebrate Valentine’s Day by sending “Love to our brothers and sisters” around the world. Love is what makes the world go around. Chaucer lived in the Middle Ages, the era of courtly love, when broad, romantic statements of devotion—poems, songs, paintings—celebrated partnership. By the end of the 15th century, the word “valentine” was being used to describe a lover in poems and songs of the day, and in the 18th century, a book called The Young Man’s Valentine Writer was published in England. By the mid-19th century, mass-produced paper Valentine’s Cards were being created (though Valentine’s card ideas are still worth trying), and Valentine’s Day as we know it was born. • The average Valentine’s Day gift giver spends nearly $200 on Valentine’s Day gifts and goodies—for about $26 billion overall. • While most people send out nice messages for the holiday, Victorian-era folks sometimes used valentines to turn down a suitor, called a vinegar valentine. • More than 250 million roses are produced for Valentine’s Day—with red roses making up nearly two-thirds of that number. |