"From Your Valentine"

When it comes to Valentine’s Day, most people buy their sweethearts a box of chocolates, flowers, and sometimes jewelry, but why do they do this? Is this holiday just an excuse for your lover to buy you extravagant gifts or does it have a deeper meaning?

It seems our definition of this day changes with time and circumstance. To someone in elementary school, Valentine’s Day means eating candy and giving valentine cards to everyone in their class that has the coolest and most popular characters on them. Once that person reaches high school, though, the meaning of Valentine’s Day has completely changed itself into a day that your crush will, hopefully, pay special attention to you. No matter what Valentine’s Day morphs into, we all need to remember the root of it, which is love.

Valentine’s Day first began in honor of St. Valentine himself, but eventually transformed into a day of romance for the sweetheart, but why do we celebrate it? We do so because that’s how we were raised, well most of us anyway. We have grown up knowing that February 14^th is the day of love, the day to give chocolate or flowers, but do people even care about the original meaning anymore?

Saint Valentine was often associated with love and nature; he was represented with birds and roses, while, roses are, often times, considered the flower of love. Gradually, February 14^th became a date for exchanging love messages and St. Valentine became the patron saint of lovers.

Valentine’s Day came to us in the year 496; Pope Gelasius marked February 14^th as a day to celebrate in honor of St. Valentine’s martyrdom, or the day he was put to death, when archeologists found a Roman catacomb and a church dedicated to Saint Valentine shortly after he was beheaded. Valentine was put to death because he was caught marrying Christian couples and aiding any Christians who were being persecuted when helping them was considered a crime.

One legend about St. Valentine says, while waiting for his execution, Valentine restored the vision of the jailer’s blind daughter. Another legend says, on the eve of his death, Valentine pinned a farewell note to the jailer’s daughter, signing it, “From your Valentine.” If this is not only a legend, then I guess that explains why we call each other Valentines. Also, while Valentine was in jail, many young people are said to have came to visit him and threw flowers and notes up to his window because they wanted him to know that they, too, believed in love.

In the United States, Esther Howland is given credit for sending the first valentine cards. Commercial valentines were introduced in the 1800’s; the day February 14^th has now become quite commercialized with all the cards, chocolates, and flowers. Valentine’s Day is often said to have been created by card companies so they could bring in more money each year because people never bothered to learn the origins of Valentine’s Day.

Valentine’s Day came upon us to begin with so we could celebrate St. Valentine; celebrate all the things he did. Taking the legends and what he stood for into consideration, that shows why we celebrate the way we do. He stood for love and that’s what Valentine’s Day is about today, not chocolate and flowers, but love.

-Nikki Haak