I've never been really enthusiastic about Valentine's Day, but I know some of you are (especially one particular person I don't need to name - ). So how do you feel about it and celebrate it, if you do?

 

^^^ One of my all-time favorite days. Even as a child, there was something magical about Valentine's Day. I suppose it has something to do with the sending of greeting cards (which I LOVE). I'm one of the world's few people who believes in sending (and sends quite often) those little "just thinking of you cards", thank-you notes for gifts, etc. I particularly enjoy homemade Valentines, even if its just a cutout piece of paper with a simple sentiment handwritten by the sender. To celebrate this year, I made some special cards for +1, the grandkids and my daughter. Of course, I gave +1 some chocolate candies and will fix a special candlit dinner tonight. I LOVE IT. Ahhhh, just a simple little old fashioned gal am I. HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY EVERYBODY!!!!!

 

One red rose for my wife. I've been doing it since she was my girlfriend, and will do it forever.

 

I think part of the reason that I haven't celebrated it that much is that my birthday is at the same time (although not the same day). But these days, I'm basically bypassing both...

 

My Valentine's Day gift this year was really awesome....a set of new Kumho Victoracers to start off the new race season. Not romantic, you say? Well, my +1 isn't really crazy about my love of autocross, since it's something he's not particularly interested in doing any more, but he's buying me tires so I can continue to do it for another season (I got a helmet and a Saner bar for Christmas).... Oh - he also got me 6 white roses and a card

As far as flowers, a few years ago he came home with 2 dozen beautiful red roses on Valentine's Day. I went over to admire them and smell them, but realized as I leaned in toward them that they were silk. I thought, "Wow! That's a bright idea.". I said, "They're beautiful...I think I'll cut them down a little so they'll fit in that nice big crystal vase. Do you have any wire cutters?" He hands me scissors. After watching me struggle to cut the stems with scissors for about 5 minutes, he goes out to find wire cutters. That worked a little better, but I jokingly remarked that maybe we should put them through the band saw. At that point he took the wire cutters and grabbed a rose to start cutting. As he bit through the plastic stem with the cutters and realized he'd reached wire, he said, "These aren't real!!! But they had them sitting in a bucket of water!" I told him how clever I thought he was to have gotten such realistic-looking fakes, and they stay out year-round. Everybody who sees them says, "Somebody must've done something special!"

 

I'm not excited by Valentine's Day, but I do make sure and do something for my husband. Used to be candy but we have to watch our weight now. I always have fresh flowers in his office and the kitchen so that wouldn't be anything new.

Here are the words in the card I bought for my husband:

My Husband,
we've discovered that love means a whole lot more than we knew
when we first got married...

We've weathered changed, acquired more patience,
and even learned to laugh when life doesn't turn out exactly as we've planned...

Sharing everything that's come our way
has given us something that some people never know...

a lasting commitment to each other.

And that's really what love is all about.

Happy Valentine's Day.

I like what it says but I don't think it's very romantic, so I will add some of my own words.

 

everyone,

I think that Valentine's Day is a "contrived" holiday that is good for the greeting card, restaurant, jewerly, candy, and florist industries. So, I guess that it helps give the economy a little boost as people buy things that they would not normally buy in February.

Of course, after everything is said an done the best present that anyone could possibly receive is not something that one can buy! ..........................................


............................ hold on now. Don't confuse sex with love making.

 

Matt, Valentine's Day actually began as a religious event. Following is a bit of information extracted from an encyclopedia:

St. Valentine's Day, on February 14th, is the traditional day on which lovers in the West let each other know about their love. Originally an ancient Catholic Church feast day in honor of Saint Valentine, it probably became associated with romantic love in the Middle Ages.
The connection between St. Valentine and romantic love is not mentioned in any early histories and is regarded by historians as purely a matter of legend (see below). The feast of St. Valentine was first declared to be on February 14 by Pope Gelasius I around 498. There is a widespread legend that he created the day to counter the practice held on Lupercalia of young men and women pairing off as lovers by drawing their names out of an urn, but this practice is not attested in any sources from that era.In the 19th century, relics of St. Valentine were donated by Pope Gregory XVI to the Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church in Dublin, Ireland, which has become a popular place of pilgrimage on February 14.
In 1969, as part of a larger effort to pare down the number of saint days of purely legendary origin, the Church removed St. Valentine's Day as an official holiday from its calendar.
Valentine's Day was probably imported into North America in the 19th century with settlers from Britain. In the United States, the first mass-produced valentines of embossed paper lace were produced and sold shortly after 1847 by Esther A. Howland (1828 - 1904) of Worcester, Massachusetts. Her father operated a large book and stationery store, and she took her inspiration from an English valentine she had received. (Since 2001, the Greeting Card Association has been giving an annual "Esther Howland Award for a Greeting Card Visionary".)

 

[quote name='valentine' date='Feb 14 2005, 07:09 AM'] .....I particularly enjoy homemade Valentines, even if its just a cutout piece of paper with a simple sentiment handwritten by the sender.

 

and like Christmas, it has become commercialized!