Valentine’s Day is a festival that cherishes love and romance. The festival falls on February 14 every year and is celebrated in several countries across the world including US, UK, Canada, Japan, France, China and India. Though the festival commemorates the martyrdom of a Christian saint called St Valentine, the festival as it is celebrated today has little religious significance. In present times, Valentine’s Day has assumed a secular and global flavor and is celebrated by people of all ages and races.
Another noticeable factor in Valentine’s Day celebration of present times is that the festival celebrates love in all its forms and is not just restricted to romantic love. People therefore exchange Valentine’s Day greetings with their parents, teachers, siblings, friends, sweethearts or anyone special or close to them. The commonest way of expressing love on Valentine’s Day is through exchanging cards, flowers and chocolates.
Some think of it as a day to celebrate their love, others think of it as ridiculous, while still others feel it’s a day to make single people feel bad, but here are some facts about Valentine’s Day that might take you by surprise.
Here are facts that you might not know about Valentine’s Day
- Every Valentine’s Day, the Italian city of Verona, where Shakespeare’s lovers Romeo and Juliet lived, receives about 1,000 letters addressed to Juliet.
- 220,000 is the average number of wedding proposals on Valentine’s Day each year.
- Teachers will receive the most Valentine’s Day cards, followed by children, mothers, wives, sweethearts and pets.
- Women purchase approximately 85 percent of all valentines day gifts.
- 189 million stems of roses are sold in the U.S. on Valentine’s Day.
- Red roses are considered the flower of love because the color red stands for strong romantic feelings.
- The red rose was the favorite flower of Venus, the Roman goddess of love.
- Over 50 percent of all Valentine’s Day cards are purchased in the six days prior to the holiday, making Valentine’s Day a procrastinator’s delight.
- Over $1 billion worth of chocolate is purchased for Valentine’s Day in the U.S.
- 15 percent of U.S. women send themselves flowers on Valentine’s Day.
- 73 percent of people who buy flowers for Valentine’s Day are men, while only 27 percent are women.
- More than 35 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolate will be sold for Valentine’s Day.
- Richard Cadbury produced the first box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day in the late 1800s.
- Physicians of the 1800s commonly advised their patients to eat chocolate to calm their pining for lost love.
- In 1537, England’s King Henry VII officially declared Feb. 14 the holiday of St. Valentine’s Day.
- In the Middle Ages, young men and women drew names from a bowl to see who would be their Valentine. They would wear this name pinned onto their sleeves for one week for everyone to see. This was the origin of the expression “to wear your heart on your sleeve.”
- Girls of medieval times ate bizarre foods on St. Valentine’s Day to make them dream of their future spouse.
- Many believe the X symbol became synonymous with the kiss in medieval times. People who couldn’t write their names signed in front of a witness with an X. The X was then kissed to show their sincerity.
- Or you could pop over to Finland where Valentine’s Day is called Ystävänpäivä, which translates into “Friend’s day”. It’s more about remembering your buddies than your loved ones.
- Meant as an alternative to Valentine’s Day, the holiday is for single people to celebrate or to commiserate in their single status.
- If you’re single don’t despair. You can celebrate Singles Awareness Day (SAD) instead.
- About 1 billion Valentine’s Day cards are exchanged each year. This makes it the second largest seasonal card sending time of the year.
- Based on retail statistics, about 3 per cent of pet owners will give Valentine’s Day gifts to their pets.
- In Victorian times it was considered bad luck to sign a Valentine’s Day card.
- The most popular theory about Valentine’s Day origin is that Emperor Claudius II didn’t want Roman men to marry during wartime. Bishop Valentine went against his wishes and performed secret weddings. For this, Valentine was jailed and executed. While in jail he wrote a note to the jailor’s daugter signing it “from your Valentine”.
25 Interesting Facts You Didn’t Know About Valentine’s Day
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