Hello everyone! Lavender is back! Last Friday was Valentine’s Day! Do you know the origin of the holiday? I didn’t either, so I decided to do some research! The day is also sometimes called Saint Valentine’s Day, named after St. Valentine. However, it turns out there are at least three saints with that name! It’s impossible to tell which one the day is named after, but there are a few interesting stories that can tell us why he’s associated with romance. One legend says that St. Valentine was a Roman priest who performed marriages for couples when marriage was outlawed in the 3rd century. Another story says St. Valentine fell in love with a girl that visited him in prison, and he sent her a letter signed “From your Valentine.” We send letters that say that today, some 1800 years later! From these stories, St. Valentine and valentine’s greetings became very popular, but it wasn’t until the 15th century that writing them became common. The oldest written valentine we have is a poem from 1415! By the 1800s in America, you could buy valentines instead of making them by hand and small gifts were often exchanged as well. So what about Japan? Valentine’s Day started here in 1935 when the chocolate company Morozoff started selling chocolates in heart boxes. However it wasn’t until the 1970s, when ads for valentine’s chocolates were aimed at women, that Valentine’s Day became a popular tradition in Japan. Soon women giving chocolate to confess their love evolved into them giving chocolate to express appreciation. Now it’s common to buy chocolate for your friends and yourself too! How about you? Did you buy or make chocolate for anyone this year?
