Valentine’s Day: How did we get here?

Valentine’s Day is all about chocolate and roses and cards. But it wasn’t always like this, so how did we get here?

Valentine’s Day is believed to be the successor of the Roman festival Lupercalia after it was expelled and replaced with a day of celebration of a martyr called Valentine.

It was only during the 17th and 18th centuries that it started to resemble the holiday of today.

Commoners would exchange cards and divine future romantic partners while aristocracy would give elaborate and expensive gifts called “Valentines.”

Then, English settlers brought the holiday with them to America in the 19th century.

In 1847, the first mass-produced Valentine’s Day card was created, kickstarting the practice of giving cards.

The holiday only started getting popular, however, in the second half of the 20th century.

Gift-giving between couples became very common on Valentine’s Day, with the most common gifts being roses and chocolate accompanied by a card.

Then in the 1980s, the diamond industry started promoting Valentine’s Day as a good time to gift fine jewelry.

Today, we gift chocolate, roses, and jewelry with the greeting, “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

Some celebrate wholeheartedly while others don’t celebrate at all. Despite this, let us just be glad that this year, Valentine’s Day was a teacher work day.

Happy Valentine’s Day!