Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentines Day!

(Click on Certificate to pick up your Valentine gift!)

The one holiday of the year that celebrates love, that deeply romantic breathless kind of love.

Young adolescent women waiting with a quiet desperation for that one card, one red rose, one box of chocolates that confirms to the world
"He Loves Me!"
Whose idea was this anyway?

Ok, so I go to my trusty Funk and Wagnalls and look up Valentines Day. It tells me to look under Saint Valentines Day (I wasn't too surprised either) get back up out of my chair, put the V volumne back and get the S volumne.

"SAINT VALENTINE'S DAY, February 14, a holiday honoring lovers". Then it goes into the card custom and the Lupercalia festival "Roman men and maidens drew partners for the coming year by lottery". (And here we had the 2 martyrs info) "The holiday is also associated with the legend that birds choose their mates on this date".

Ok, the partners by lottery and the bird thing was a bit interesting, but I wanted more information, after all, isn't this the information age? So I put im my Compton's CD here is what it had to say...

"SAINT VALENTINE'S DAY. People once believed that birds, particularly lovebirds, began to mate on February 14. In ancient Rome the festival of the Lupercalia was celebrated on February 15; the festival involved fertility rites and honored the two Roman gods Juno and Pan. (blah,blah states pretty much the same stuff as we have heard before, but adds...) The modern celebration of St. Valentine's Day probably grew out of a tradition that started in about the 14th century. For many years young people in France and England would get together on St. Valentine's Eve. Each person became the "valentine" of the one whose name was drawn from a valentine box."

Hmmm picking a date from names in a box, drawing partners by lottery, birds doing their thing again, and this Lupercalia.... Let's look that up.

"Lupercalia, Roman festival in honor of ancient god Lupercus, protector of flocks against wolves, sometimes identified with Faunus."

What the heck does that have to do with romance? Back to the drawing board. Oh wait, young maidens (sheep) young men (wolves) makes a bit of sense if you look at it that way. Let's see what happens when we look up Cupid...

"Cupid, in Roman mythology, god of love; same as Greek god Eros; son of Venus(Aphrodite); pictured as blindfolded boy with bow and arrows . see also Psyche" (here we go again, at least I'm using the computer cd so I don't have to keep getting up to get a different book)

Psyche, I'll let you look that one up!

Under Aphrodite (Cupids Mother, also known as Venus) was this little excerpt... "Always eager to help lovers in distress, Aphrodite was equally quick to punish those who resisted the call of love. Cupid shot golden arrows into the hearts of those his mother wanted to unite in marriage. Aphrodite also had a magic girdle that made its wearer irresistible, and she sometimes loaned it to others." (Well, that explains cupid I guess, but girdles? Didn't we burn those along with our bras?)

Well, enough is enough, when you bore yourself, you know you've gone to far! What does all this have to do with chocolate, roses and jewelry? I don't know!

So I went to the internet and low and behold, I found Valentine's Day Web Rings! I couldn't think of a more fun way to find out more information than to surf around the net and see what Valentine's Day means to other people, so I joined them! And as I find other Valentine's Web Rings, I'll add them here!

Happy Valentines Day and Happy Surfing!