February the 14^th is a day filled with romance, flowers, chocolates and maybe a little too much fantasizing on my behalf. However, it wasn’t always that way, in fact the original celebration had more to do with celebrating the feast of a Roman deity, than it had to do with a celebration of your relationship. After it moved from the Roman goddess’s celebration day, the feast was overtaken by the Catholic Church where the many Christians chose to observe Saint Valentines celebration day on the 14^th of February. However, February has been associated with romance, fertility and all things around relationships since time began it seems and we at Sir Holiday wanted to find out more. Hence, let us delve a bit more into the backstory behind our all-time favourite holiday, the one and only Valentine’s Day.

A little more insight into the story of the priest is needed, namely that Saint Valentine helped a blind girl be able to see again through the power of prayer and through proclamation of her faith. This act as well as his martyrdom due to the fact that he performed Christian marriages in a time they were forbidden, is the reason his feast day was granted. However, this doesn’t explain our enduring love affair with Valentine’s Day, now does it? Besides the fact that fighting for the rights of people to be married is probably one of the most romantic things ever to cross the face of the earth.

If you’re wondering the feelings of love and adoration began to be associated with the feast of Saint Valentine, well it wasn’t for quite a while. You see the ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia the Roman goddess was still being conducted, despite it being illegal for anyone to observe the festival in the now Christian society. Slowly, with time the festival began to lose popularity however it did not entirely die out. But this still wasn’t how love began to creep into Valentine’s Day. No, the French helped a little with that.

The French thought February the 14^th was the start date of the mating season for all birds within the Northern hemisphere. This propelled a jolt of love into the holiday. Yet special romantic greetings, poems and cards were not yet in fashion during the dark ages. No, during the 1400’s a certain Duke of Orleans wrote a poem to his wife. This poem became the first officially recognized Valentine in existence and the opening lines are often recited still today. Much, much later, King Henry the fifth was rumoured to have commissioned a writer to compose a Valentines letter to his then wife Catherine of Valois.

Over time Valentine’s Day has continued to become more and more entrenched with the ideals of love and while there is always someone chirping away about the commercialization of the holiday, you can’t help but feel the extra bit of jazz in your footsteps. Especially when there is just so much love to go around. We hope you at Sir Holiday are feeling the love this year, for all of your holiday information and more visit Sir Holiday today!

Chocolate and flowers link:

https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2017/02/11/14/19/valentines-day-2057745_960_720.jpg

Rome link:

https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2017/11/30/18/55/rome-2989238_960_720.jpg