Valentine's Day has been around for centuries. Some fall in love with the holiday every year; others feel much less warmly toward it. However you feel, the day carries real meaning in history.
The exact history may never be known for certain — it's a story tangled with many different tales. The most common traces it to St. Valentine, martyred in the year 250. In ancient Rome, February 14th was a feast day honoring Juno, queen of the gods, when boys and girls paired off by drawing names from a jar. Many of those matches fell in love and married — so many that fewer young men were willing to leave for war. Emperor Claudius II, wanting soldiers rather than sweethearts, banned engagements and marriages across Rome entirely.
From Your Valentine.
Couples kept marrying anyway, with Christian priests helping in secret. St. Valentine was said to be one of them — caught, and sentenced to death on February 14th. As the story goes, he fell in love with his jailer's daughter while awaiter execution, and left her a final note signed "From Your Valentine" — which is why, to this day, we still sign our cards the very same way.
Over the years the day has grown far from its religious roots and become something more commercial — but it still means something to the people who mark it. This Valentine's Day, you don't need a gift at all. Just tell the person you love how much they mean to you, and take a little time — a walk, a picnic, anything shared — to appreciate one another. That's the true spirit of the day.
