Happy Valentines Day 2017!

Candy hearts, chocolate and Valentines seem to be everywhere you turn today. Valentine’s Day is today, February 14, 2017! Now is the time to let your sweet heart, secret admirer, or friends and family know how much you love them. Valentine’s Day reminds us of the simple fact of love and calls to mind that romantic idea of how it might just possibly conquer all.

Sixty two percent of us celebrate Valentine’s Day here in the United States. The holiday is also celebrated in Canada, Mexico, The United Kingdom, France, Australia, Demark, Italy, and Japan. Valentine’s Day gets its roots from an ancient Roman festival called Lupercalia. Later the holiday would be Christianized to celebrate the infamous Saint Valentine. While little is known about his identity, Saint Valentine is most popularly believe to be a Saint who was secretly preforming marriages when it had been declared illegal for Roman men by the empire. In the name of this patron of love, many through the centuries celebrated on February 14th. In the 1300’s the day was first associated with love and the freshness of spring.

The first hand written Valentine’s began appearing in the 1500’s, and the British would start the tradition of exchanging them in the 1700’s. Today, an estimated 1 billion valentines are expected to be exchanged this year, along with consumers buying 35 million chocolate hearts, and 222 million roses for the holiday.

Take the day to show someone that you really care. Love is in the air this time of year, after all. So celebrate with someone and something sweet, and make the patron Saint Valentine proud. Happy Valentine’s Day from all of us at the Jefferson County Post.