Love Is In The Air...“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”

This is a blog that I wrote a year ago and it bears repeating so out of the archives... 

    Every February across the country, we celebrate Valentines Day.  We celebrate by exchanging cards, flowers, candy, and of course, the whisper of love through out this special day. This day is for people flirting with the idea of being in love or people actually in love. It also means we see pretty pink and red hearts all around us.  Of course, we cannot think of Valentines Day without that darling chubby cupid, posing with his bow shooting his arrow of love.  I have to admit, that in this instance being chubby is cute.  Valentines Day is when the restaurants gear up for couples in love everywhere and they advertise those cute meals for two.

    Look at the businesses who have a hand in helping us discover love on this day, florists, card shops, lingerie boutiques, and candy shops.  This is truly the day for romantics everywhere. I asked a few of my friends what Valentines Day meant to them and they all said the same thing, “love and romance.” That about sums it up for all of us. Ever since we were in grammar school, we used to exchange valentine cards with our classmates. That was a fun day and then we would have a party celebrating “love”

    Just for the fun of it, I thought I would ask my husband what he thought of Valentines Day, thinking he would vow his ever-ending love for me, but no, he began a litany about the St. Valentines Massacre, so you know where his mind is. That day will go down in history and has nothing to do with Love, but aren’t you curious why Capone chose that day of all days?  Was it because his nemesis owned a florist shop?  

     Have you ever thought about how St. Valentines became such a special day and why? I guess I wonder why we all do this in the name of St. Valentines.   St. Valentines Day, which has surprised me, has been around since the middle ages. Of course, the first written Valentine did not appear until around 1400. Valentine’s Day has also been both a Christian and Ancient Roman tradition. However, I had to wonder who is St. Valentine, and how did it become part of this rite of honor.

     I do remember reading years ago that the Catholics do have several saints named Valentine and, or Valentinus, and they are martyred, naturally. Valentine was one of the most popular saints in England and France. There are so many stories about how Valentine’s began, but this is one legend that I thought was the most romantic that I would like to believe is true. 

    Legend has it, a person named St. Valentine, a roman who actually sent the first Valentine greeting himself. I guess the story goes that he was in prison for refusing to give up his Christianity and he fell in love with a girl who happened to be the daughter of the person who put Valentine in prison. Talk about hard luck! Well, you can imagine the rest; she visited Valentine in prison, they both fell madly in love, and before he was sentenced to death, he wrote his true love a letter and it was signed “from your Valentine.” Funny, isn’t it that we still use that term today?

   His death took place on February 14, 269A.D. the same day that the Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalis, which is the day when boys drew names of girls to honor Juno, and couples were formed for the year.

   I am not sure if this story is to be believed, but it says something for Love and what a romantic character he was. 

      

     Did you know that women buy about 85% of all Valentines?

    The oldest known Valentine card is displayed at the British Museum.

     A woman who is known as the “Mother of the Valentine,” made these elaborate cards, created with real lace, ribbons, and colorful pictures, known as “scrap.”  Her name was Esther A. Howland. She created the first commercial Valentine’s Day greeting card, which was produced in the U.S in the 1840’s.

   This is another fun fact that I came across. It is believed that 1 billion

Valentine cards are sent each year, making Valentine's Day the second largest card-sending holiday, next to Christmas. Now that you know a little bit more history about Valentines Day, I thought I would leave you with a few favorite quotes of mine that share the same sentiment of St. Valentines Day, when Love is in the air....

“Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.”- Aristotle

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”- Lao Tzu

“My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
my love as deep; the more I give to thee,
the more I have, for both are infinite.”- William Shakespeare

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.”-Helen Keller

“Love does not dominate; it cultivates.”- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.”- Zora Neale Hurston

“Two souls with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one.”- John Keats

Happy Valentine’s Day to all of you!  Make it a special Day with the one you love!