Why do we celebrate Valentine's Day?

"We celebrate Valentine's Day, because until 1969, it was one of the many Saint's Days observed by the Catholic Church. It was dedicated to the patron saint of romantic causes, St. Valentine.
Although it was removed from the Church's calendar in 1969, the religious meaning coupled with Valentine's Day's roots in Roman paganism have allowed it to continue as a holiday for everyone.
Early Christians saw Valentine's Day as a way to honor St. Valentine, of whom there were actually three. The Catholic Church recognizes three saints by that name, all who were martyred on February 14.
The St. Valentine the day is named for was, most likely, a priest in the 3rd century who performed secret marriages when the Roman Emperor Claudius II thought single soldiers were more likely to enlist in the army. That St. Valentine was imprisoned and executed on February 4, 270. It is believed he sent the jailer's daughter a note saying, "From your Valentine." The phrase is still widely used on valentines today.
In 496 A.D., February 14, was declared in the name of St. Valentine by Pope Gelasius. It remained a Church holiday until 1969, when Pope Paul VI took it from the calendar.
On February 14, the ancient Romans celebrated the Feast of Lupercalia in honor of Juno, the queen of the Roman gods and goddesses. Juno was also the goddess of women and marriage so honoring her was thought to be a fertility rite.
At the feast held the next day, the women would write love letters and stick them in a large urn. The men would pick a letter from the urn and for the next year, pursue the woman who wrote the chosen letter. This custom lasted until the 1700's when people decided their beloveds should be chosen by sight, not luck."

Amazing-but-True Facts

• In the Tahitian language, "valen tine" is an extremely vulgar expression.
  
  
• Although a common practice now, John Wilkes Booth's brother, Edwin, was the first known actor to send a Valentine card to himself.
  
  
• To celebrate being the most romantic city on Valentine's Day, couples in Loveland, Colorado, trade Broncos jerseys for the day.
  
  
• Franklin D. Roosevelt spent every one of his 13 Valentine's Days as president of the United States tooling around the White House in his wheelchair completely naked.
  
  
• When broken down into its basic elemental components, love, in fact, actually does stink.
  
  
• In some remote mountain villages in the Romagna-Campanile region of Italy, Valentine's Day is still celebrated by the ancient Roman lottery in which each teenage boy draws the name of a teenage girl who will be his sex partner for the rest of the year.
  
  
• In Rome around the time of Tiberius, children were taught archery from a young age, and for sport, some would sneak naked into bath houses and shoot people with their toy arrows. This was the origin of "Cupid" -- Latin for "accursed child."
  
  
• On February 14, 1933, Al Capone's widow started an ultimately unsuccessful petition to have the St. Valentine's Day Massacre downgraded to a "public disturbance."
  
  
• Infamous cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer superstitiously avoiding eating heart on Valentine's Day.
  
  
• The phrase "Friends, Romans, countrymen" is an example of "copulative asyndenton" (coincidentally an anagram of "Valentine's Day Cop-out"), which is how Mark Antony's February 14th speech was characterized by those still loyal to Julius Caesar.
  
  
• An old Ukrainian custom dictates that women make sachets out of lovers' flowers after Valentine's Day. So the women who leave their men after Valentine's Day even after receiving such gifts are said to "come out smelling like a rose."
  
  
• Hallmark this year launched a new line called "the Brokeback Collection" for gay lovers.
  
  
• Satanists traditionally celebrate St. Valentine's Day by sacrificing one live kitten for each date who turned them down during that year.
  
  
• The St. Valentine's Day Massacre originally was scheduled for January 5, but nobody could spell St. Telesphorus, so they rescheduled it.
  
  
• The caloric intake from 50 cinnamon candy hearts provides precisely the calories needed to sign and seal one valentine card.
  
  
• "Simpsons" creator Matt Groening got his start drawing loveable animals on children's valentine cards.
  
  
• Ovaltine was originally marketed as Ovalentine, "the elixir of love." In 1930, when it began sponsoring "Little Orphan Annie," the name was slightly altered at the request of church groups anxious to avoid any nasty sexual connotations.
  
  
• In 18th-century Italy, it was customary to cut out your lover's heart upon his or her death and carry it with you one day for every year you were together.
  
  
• Unsold Valentine's Day heart candies are sold as chalk to Third-World schools.
  
  
• Roses were traditionally brought to duels in the middle ages by onlookers as a gift to console the widow of the fight's loser.
  
  
• In colonial America, it was believed that saying "Happy Valentine's Day" backwards 10 times while copulating would ensure that your next offspring would be male.
  
  
• Candy and flowers have dropped to positions #2 and #3 as favorite Valentine's Day gifts. Position #1 is now occupied by video disks.
  
  
• Former Major League Baseball manager Bobby Valentine was born on Valentine's Day.
  
  
• In 1946, after seeing one of her films, the crown prince of the Congo once sent actress Shirley Temple a gift of 70 head of cattle.
  
  
• Despite common lore, Valentine's Day was not named after St. Valentine, but the great-great-grandfather of Rudolph Valentino, a poet.
  
  
• On a molecular level, red roses and a pint of type AB-negative blood are the same exact color.
  
  
• The practice of giving fresh-cut flowers to one's beloved is a modern-day replacement for the traditional gift of fresh-killed game animals.
  
  
• In early days, locksmiths charged half price on Valentine's Day for making duplicate keys for chastity belts.
  
  
• The most popular brand of candy hearts is actually made with a mixture of 90% sugar, 5% artificial flavoring and 5% gunpowder. If laid on a flat, hard surface and stomped on, they "explode" just like cap-gun rounds.
  
  
• If said in the correct tone and cadence, "Be my Valentine" played backwards sounds exactly like "Butt-love is in."
  
  
• Fearing the country was becoming too violent, President Chester Arthur declared Valentine's Day would replace Knife-Fight Day.
  
  
• The daisy, not the rose, is the biggest-selling flower on Valentine's Day, according to the National Flower Association.
  
  
• The tradition of giving chocolate hearts was started in 1255 by the Duke of Hershey, who murdered his wife's lover and presented her with his heart on a platter with an assortment of fine candies.
  
  
• In Wisconsin, sodomy is legal for the 24 hours of Valentine's Day.
  
  
• Use of the heart to symbolize affection originated with the ancient Egyptians. After removal of all internal organs in preparation for mummification, pharaohs' hearts were given to their widows as a last expression of earthly devotion.
  
  
• Among the findings of the 9/11 Commission was that a young Osama bin Laden received no valentines as a third-grader in a London prep school.
  
  
• Schlitz has been the "Official Beer of Valentine's Day" since 1982.
  
  
• Windows XP users who create a user name "billg" then play 214 games of FreeCell on February 14 will be treated to a slide show from Bill and Melinda Gates' wedding.
  
  
• Actor Vin Diesel has been selected as Mr. Valentine of 2006 by the town of Valentine, Wyoming.
  
  
• Candy hearts were originally candied hamster hearts that were dried, cut and stamped.
  
  
• The average red rose contains 38 calories. White roses have only 26.
  
  
• "Will you be my Valentine?" has traditionally been at the low end of the sexual harassment scale, but in recent years has moved up quickly among easily-offended women.
  
  
• Valentine's Day cards were invented by an out-of-work newspaper obituary writer who hung out at the back exit of a brothel with a camera.
  
  
• On 2/14/00, 214 people bled to death from injuries attributed to rose thorns.
  
  
• There are more fatalities on Valentine's Day from cardiac arrests -- i.e., broken hearts -- than any other single cause.
  
  
• Although the human heart is not actually "heart-shaped," its valves are, to allow blood to flow in only one direction.
  
  
• The real-life third-century St. Valentine was notorious for his forays into bestiality.
  
  
• A box of holiday chocolates, one of which contained a de-legged, living roach, was a popular parlor amusement of French aristocrats.
  
  
• A recent survey showed that marriages in which both partners vote Democrat tend to last 4.3 years less on average than those in which at least one partner votes Republican.
  
  
• During WWII, British spies occasionally used small bags of candy hearts to pass secure information, using the sayings and color of the hearts to add layers of encryption.
  
  
• The poison most likely to have been dispensed to Romeo by an apothecary of that time was "tincture of wormwood," which has the same exact fragrance as a combination of roses and chocolate.
  
  
• February 14 (2/14) was chosen as the date to celebrate Valentine's Day because it symbolizes "TWO become ONE FOR-ever."
  
  
• The symbol of the heart for Valentine's Day and love came from an old Visigoth ritual of eating the hearts of one's enemies to gain virility.

Valentine's Day Gift Ideas

Finding the right Valentine's Day gift is probably the most difficult shopping experience in any man's life. It isn't like buying a birthday gift -- choosing a gift for this special occasion won't just show your affection toward her, but your degree of commitment as well.

The nature of the Valentine's Day gift can reflect how much you care, or don't care, about her. The meaning of your gift also varies according to the seriousness and the type of relationship you're in. So, we've put together a great list of Valentine's Day gift ideas, depending on your particular relationship level.