On February 14, the USA like most other countries in the world will celebrate Valentine’s Day. Traditionally, it is a day marked by the celebration of romantic love and is typically symbolized by representations of hearts, red roses, doves and Cupid. Americans commemorate the occasion in a variety of ways, including offering each other small tokens of affection like flowers and sweets and sending greeting cards specially themed for the day.
Although now observed as a secular holiday, Valentine’s Day was originally a church-sanctioned holy day of obligation dedicated to Saint Valentine. Unfortunately, whose Saint Valentine’s Day it was is not clear as there were more than one Saint Valentines who were martyred during ancient Roman times. According to historical accounts, one Saint Valentine was imprisoned and executed for performing weddings for soldiers who were prohibited from marrying while in military service. Another Saint Valentine was put to death for helping Christians escape from prison, and who while awaiting his execution, healed the blind daughter of his jailer. Supposedly, this Saint Valentine, before his death, sent her a love note signed “from your Valentine,” an expression that we still like to use until today. In any event, around 498 A.D., Pope Gelasius declared February 14 as St. Valentine’s Day.
There are others though who maintain that the Christian church may have decided to place St. Valentine’s feast day in the middle of February in order to “Christianize” the pagan feast of Lupercalia which was celebrated at the ides of February, or February 15, and was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to Romulus and Remus, the supposed founders of Rome. On the other hand, there are also others who believe that February 14 was chosen by the church for the special day because it was when the mating season for birds generally begin, and this further added to the notion that Valentine’s Day should be a day for romance.
Whatever the reason of the church for marking February 14 as Saint Valentine’s feast day, it was during the Medieval period when the holiday started becoming popular as a celebration of romantic love. From that point, people started sending and exchanging handwritten love notes and greeting cards. According to History.com, 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, made 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. With the Internet, people are also using digital means of creating and sending Valentine’s Day messages through e-cards, love coupons or printable greeting cards. For that significant other, Americans have made it a point to give customary boxes of chocolates and flowers, especially red roses on Valentine’s Day, followed by a special meal at a favorite restaurant.
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