Valentine's Day?

Every year Valentine's Day comes and goes with chocolate and roses and few questions asked about the why. Some of us gleefully celebrate if we're lovingly attached, and others have a night out with friends to vent about their undesirable ex who only did laundry once a month and chewed with their mouth open.

Let's flip the calendar back to a little over a thousand years or so to the Roman pagan festival of Lupercalia to celebrate Spring's arrival and fertility. During this festival, lucky women were paired with men via a lottery to henceforth and procreate. By the end of the 5th century, in an ordinance to Christianize the annual event, Pope Gelasius changed the name from Lupercalia to St. Valentine's Day. But who is Valentine?

The exact person remains somewhat of a mystery, but two individuals mentioned throughout history may be our patriarch of love. Candidate number one was a priest martyred by Claudius II Gothicus, who legend claims healed his jailer's blind daughter. The priest befriended the girl and signed his letters "your Valentine." Another possible contender is a priest who disobeyed the ruling emperor of the time and married couples secretly for the men to avoid their wartime duties.

By the 1500s, Valentine's Day was the official day for romance, with people sending affectionate messages to their crushes. Through the paths of migration, this heartfelt day found its way to the United States' shores by the 1700s.

Today, Valentine's Day is popular in many countries, including Britain, Canada, Australia, France, and Mexico. Some symbols you may see adorning decorations on this day of adoration are birds because February is avian mating season and that pesky little Cupid and his arrow. Cupid was the Roman god of love, so this makes complete sense!

So the next time you book a reservation for you and your sweetie on February 14th, you'll know why. Happy Valentine's Day from us to you!