Charleston Real Estate Blog

Every February 14, across the United States and in other places around the world, candy, flowers and gifts are exchanged between loved ones, all in the name of St. Valentine. But who is this mysterious saint, and where did these traditions come from? Find out about the history of this centuries-old holiday, from ancient Roman rituals to the customs of Victorian England.

The Legend of St. Valentine

The history of Valentine’s Day–and the story of its patron saint–is shrouded in mystery. We do know that February has long been celebrated as a month of romance, and that St. Valentine’s Day, as we know it today, contains vestiges of both Christian and ancient Roman tradition. But who was Saint Valentine, and how did he become associated with this ancient rite?

The Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all of whom were martyred. One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine’s actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death.

Other stories suggest that Valentine may have been killed for attempting to help Christians escape harsh Roman prisons, where they were often beaten and tortured. According to one legend, an imprisoned Valentine actually sent the first “valentine” greeting  himself after he fell in love with a young girl–possibly his jailor’s daughter–who visited him during his confinement. Before his death, it is alleged that he wrote her a letter signed “From your Valentine,” an expression that is still in use today. Although the truth behind the Valentine legends is murky, the stories all emphasize his appeal as a sympathetic, heroic and–most importantly–romantic figure. By the Middle Ages, perhaps thanks to this reputation, Valentine would become one of the most popular saints in England and France.

Origins of Valentine’s Day: A Pagan Festival in February

While some believe that Valentine’s Day is celebrated in the middle of February to commemorate the anniversary of Valentine’s death or burial–which probably occurred around A.D. 270–others claim that the Christian church may have decided to place St. Valentine’s feast day in the middle of February in an effort to “Christianize” the pagan celebration of Lupercalia. Celebrated at the ides of February, or February 15, Lupercalia was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus.

To begin the festival, members of the Luperci, an order of Roman priests, would gather at a sacred cave where the infants Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were believed to have been  cared for by a she-wolf or lupa. The priests would sacrifice a goat, for fertility, and a dog, for purification. They would then strip the goat’s hide into strips, dip them into the sacrificial blood and take to the streets, gently slapping both women and crop fields with the goat hide. Far from being fearful, Roman women welcomed the touch of the hides because it was believed to make them more fertile in the coming year. Later in the day, according to legend, all the young women in the city would place their names in a big urn. The city’s bachelors would each choose a name and become paired for the year with his chosen woman. These matches often ended in marriage.

Valentine’s Day: A Day of Romance

Lupercalia survived the initial rise of Christianity and but was outlawed—as it was deemed “un-Christian”–at the end of the 5th century, when Pope Gelasius declared February 14 St. Valentine’s Day. It was not until much later, however, that the day became definitively associated with love. During the Middle Ages, it was commonly believed in France and England that February 14 was the beginning of birds’ mating season, which added to the idea that the middle of Valentine’s Day should be a day for romance.

Valentine greetings were popular as far back as the Middle Ages, though written Valentine’s didn’t begin to appear until after 1400.  The oldest known valentine still in existence today was a poem written in 1415 by Charles, Duke of Orleans, to his wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt. (The greeting is now part of the manuscript collection of the British Library in London, England.) Several years later, it is believed that King Henry V hired a writer named John Lydgate to compose a valentine note to Catherine of Valois.

Typical Valentine’s Day Greetings

In addition to the United States, Valentine’s Day is celebrated in Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France and Australia. In Great Britain, Valentine’s Day began to be popularly celebrated  around the 17th century. By the middle of the 18th, it was common for friends and lovers of all social classes to exchange small tokens of affection or handwritten notes, and by 1900 printed cards began to replace written letters due to improvements in printing technology. Ready-made cards were an easy way for people to express their emotions in a time when direct expression of one’s feelings was discouraged. Cheaper postage rates also contributed to an increase in the popularity of sending Valentine’s Day greetings.

Americans probably began exchanging hand-made valentines in the early 1700s. In the 1840s, Esther A. Howland began selling the first mass-produced valentines in America. Howland, known as the “Mother of the Valentine,” made elaborate creations with real lace, ribbons and colorful pictures known as “scrap.” Today, according to the Greeting Card Association, an estimated 1 billion Valentine’s Day cards are sent each year, making Valentine’s Day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year. (An estimated 2.6 billion cards are sent for Christmas.) Women purchase approximately 85 percent of all valentines.

Watch a video from the history channel about Valentines Day:

http://www.history.com/topics/valentines-day/videos#history-of-valentines-day

Reposted: History.com

Need a break from toy shopping, tinsel hanging and chestnut roasting? Pour yourself some eggnog and take five with some fun facts about the holiday season. From the weight of the New Year’s Eve ball to the number of lights on the Rockefeller Center tree, these bits of winter wisdom will give you a needed reprieve from the holiday hoopla—and they’re also great conversation starters for the company Christmas party.

Confection Affection

In 1847, a process was developed to allow confectioners to mold chocolate into shapes, paving the way for candy bars and chocolate Santas. In the 1920s, the first chocolate gelt was made, allowing Jewish families to use candy in lieu of actual coins for the custom of giving money to their children during Hanukkah. Today, the winter holidays rank third, behind Halloween and Easter, in terms of U.S. candy sales, and National Confectioners Association reports that approximately 150 million chocolate Santas will be made for the season.

Getting Hooked

While the candy cane is a seasonal staple in the U.S. today—1.8 billion canes in traditional peppermint, super sour, and tropical fruit flavors were made for the holidays this year—it has a storied past. The first canes were created in 1670 by a German choirmaster, who gave out all-white sugar sticks—bent like the shape of a shepherd’s staff—to keep children in his congregation occupied between hymns. In the U.S., the treat began as a straight, white stick of sugar until the turn of the century. The jury’s out on who exactly brought the stripes and shape to America.

Big Spenders

American consumers took advantage of Black Friday sales, spending a record-high $52 billion this year, with the average shopper shelling out around $400 over the course of the weekend. The National Retail Association predicts that the total holiday spending this year will reach approximately $465.6 billion and, to accommodate all the extra shoppers between Thanksgiving and Christmas, retailers expect to hire roughly 490,000 seasonal employees.

Tree Truths

Between January and September 2011, $79.7 million worth of artificial Christmas trees were imported from China to the United States. However, real trees still outsell artificial trees 3-to-1. To accommodate the demand, Christmas tree farms in North America planted an estimated 40 million new seedlings in the winter and spring of this year to replace harvested trees and meet future needs.

Spruced-Up Spruce

In 1931, construction workers raised a 20-foot tree on the muddy site that would become Rockefeller Center. They had no idea that, 70 years later, tens of thousands of people would crowd the sidewalks for the ceremonial lighting of this year’s 74-foot Norway Spruce, which features 30,000 bulbs attached to 5 miles of wiring. The glitzy star atop this year’s tree weighs a whopping 500 pounds and is adorned with 25,000 Swarovski crystals.

Toy Story

Run by U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Toys for Tots began in 1947, when 5,000 toys were collected outside Warner Bros. Studios in Los Angeles and given to local children. Since the nonprofit’s launch, more than 500 million holiday gifts have been donated and distributed to underprivileged kids throughout the country. Last year’s campaign collected a record 16.7 million toys for almost 7.2 million children. Let’s try to beat it this year!

Family Ties

Following the 1966 Watts Riots in L.A., Maulana Karenga, Ph.D., professor and chairman of Africana Studies at California State University, Long Beach, created Kwanzaa as a way to unify the African-American community. Swahili for “fresh fruits,” Kwanzaa was inspired by traditional African harvest celebrations and honors not only family and cultural heritage, but also values like unity, self-determination, creativity and faith.

Gingerbread Giants

The largest gingerbread house in the U.S. was fittingly constructed inside the largest mall in the U.S. when a 67-foot-tall gingerbread abode was built inside Minnesota’s Mall of America in 2006. The house, which took nine days to construct, could have fit the country’s largest gingerbread man, also made in 2006, who stood over 20 feet high and weighed over 1,308 pounds. In 2009, a potentially record-breaking gingerbread man was created in Madison, Wis., but Guinness World Records has yet to officially recognize the achievement.

Trash Talkin’

The U.S. produces an estimated 1 million tons of additional waste per week between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. This includes 38,000 miles of decorative ribbon, enough to tie a bow around the entire globe. If each family in the U.S. sent just one less holiday card, then the nation would save 150,000 cubic feet of paper, enough to fill 25,000 wheelbarrows.

Dreidels In D.C.

Starting with Jimmy Carter in 1979, each U.S. president has attended a menorah-lighting ceremony to recognize Hanukkah. President Bill Clinton began the tradition of placing a menorah in the Oval Office in ’93, and President George W. Bush threw the first White House Hanukkah party in ’01. While the past three commander in chiefs have acknowledged Kwanzaa, the White House does not have an established set of customs surrounding the holiday.

Yuletide Tunes

According to American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, between 2000 and 2010, the most-performed holiday song was “Winter Wonderland,” which was written in 1934. While recordings by The Andrews Sisters and Perry Cuomo popularized the song in the ’40s, versions by Eurythmics, Jewel and Air Supply are frequently heard on radio today.

Having A Ball

When fireworks were banned in 1907—just three years after the first New Year’s Eve celebration in Times Square—officials lowered a ball from a flagpole to signal the end of one year and the start of another. The new tradition wasn’t out of the blue, though: For decades, residents of various U.S. cities synchronized their watches using a giant globe that would descend from a pole in a public space. In 1907, the New Year’s orb was composed of iron and wood and weighed 700 pounds. Today’s ball contains 32,256 LED lights and 2,668 crystals, tipping the scale at 11,875 pounds.

Big Blockbusters

Movies releasing during the holidays typically rake in big dough. In 2009, Sherlock Holmes grossed about $24.6 million dollars on Christmas Day, setting an all-time single-day record for Dec. 25. Avatar ranks first in New Year’s Day sales, having made nearly $25.3 million on Jan. 1, 2010. Also ranking high on the charts for both days is 2004′s Meet the Fockers, grossing $19.5 million on Christmas and $18.3 million on New Year’s Day.

By Julie Fishman
Reposted: MSN- Glo
12-15-2011