HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

Valentine's Day is more than greeting cards, flowers and candy, and more than telling your sweetheart that you love each other. It is also love in general toward others and sacrifice. There is much history about Saint Valentine, dating back before the 14th century, but the holiday is generally celebrated world wide.

Prior to Chaucer in the 14th century, no links between the Saint named Valentinus and romantic love existed. Earlier links were focused on sacrifice rather than romantic love.

The "roses are red, violets are blue" saying dates back to Edmund Spenser's epic of 1590:
"She bath'd with roses red, and violets blew,
And all the sweetest flowres, that in the forrest grew."

One of the nursery rhymes by Gammer Gurton's Garland in 1784:
"The rose is red, the violet's blue,
The honey's sweet, and so are you.
Thou art my love and I am thine;
I drew thee to my Valentine:
The lot was cast and then I drew,
And Fortune said it shou'd be you."

And to my Sweetheart, Gerald: