Happy Valentine’s Day! Or, if you’re single, Happy Look At The Flowers and Gifts Delivered To All Your Attached Friends and Coworkers Day!
So what’s Saint Valentine’s Day all about and why do we mark its occasion every February 14? That’s hard to pin down, as there are many different stories as to the origins of Valentine’s Day, but like many of the holidays we observe, Valentine’s Day has its roots in paganism.
Actually, hundreds of years before the Church altered the day of love in an attempt to rid it of its pagan roots, Romans practiced a pagan celebration in mid-February commemorating young men's rite of passage to the god Lupercus. The young men would draw names of teenage girls from a box and whomever the boy chose would be his companion for the remainder of the year.
The Church, of course, didn’t like the pagan festival and so Pope Gelasius ordered a slight change in the celebration. He did so by filling the box with the names of saints instead of girls and allowing both men and women to draw from the box. The game was to emulate the ways of the saint for the remainder of the year. The Church then found a patron saint by the name of Bishop Valentine for people to celebrate instead of Lupercus.
Bishop Valentine was sent to jail and executed after Claudius II (270 AD) found out he was performing secret marriages. You see, Claudius banned marriage to preserve the number of single men to be soldiers. Claudius, so the story goes, believed that single men made better soldiers. Bishop Valentine disagreed with Claudius and performed secret weddings until he was found out. He was executed on February 14. It was during his time in jail that he wrote his lover a note and signed it, “From Your Valentine.”
And that is how we came to celebrate Valentine’s Day.
Oh, and if you get a Valentine’s Day card – or more than one – on February 14 you’re in good company. Estimates vary of up to one billion Valentine’s Day cards being given each year. Yup, that’s right, there are about one billion Valentine's cards sent out worldwide each year. Christmas is the only holiday for which more cards are sent.
Of course, Valentine’s Day is all about love and being in love. So what if you’re single and have to sit back and watch as your friends and coworkers get flowers or candy deliveries all day long? Not to mention the Facebook status updates detailing how awesome this one is because she or he just got his or her spouse or significant other the best Valentine’s Day gift ever or that they have reservations at some romantic restaurant you’ve been dying to go to? Well, there’s really nothing you can do except hope Cupid points his arrow at you in time for next Valentine’s Day. That or plan a night out with your single friends and toast the fact that you’re single. Either way, you should enjoy the day. Love is in the air and you never know what could happen.
