Reading – Valentine’s Day!
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Valentine’s Day is the most romantic day of the year! It’s a day when people celebrate love and romance. Everywhere you go right now, you see red and pink Valentine’s decorations like hearts and flowers and Cupids, while people wish one another “Happy Valentine’s Day!” We celebrate by buying gifts for the people we love! We buy cards, flowers (usually red roses), dinner at a nice restaurant, jewelry, chocolates or candies.
Even people who are not in a relationship still buy cards and candies for their friends and family. It’s tradition for school children to exchange Valentine’s Day cards with each other. I remember when I was really young, maybe 5 or 6 years old, my entire class made colourful Valentine’s Day boxes, in which we could put our cards for each other!
I think it’s a lot of fun! February can be kind of boring because it’s another cold month during our long winter.
Nobody gets the day off of work because it’s not an official holiday, but it is an important North American tradition!
Where and how did this tradition begin?
(In English x= a kiss, o = a hug, therefore xo = hugs and kisses)
When did Valentine’s Day start?
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word Valentine comes from the name of two early Italian saints. Actually there is more than one St. Valentine recognized by the Catholic Church, because different forms of the name Valentine were very common in the Roman Empire and early Middle Ages in Europe (Valentine comes from the Latin word for ‘valour’). Each saint had their own ‘feast day,’ a day when they were celebrated. Not much is known about the actual St. Valentine whose feast day was Feb 14th, and in 1969 he was even removed from the official list of Catholic feast days, so it is no longer a religious holiday.
Some people point to 14th century English writer Geoffrey Chaucer and his poem Parliament of Foules as the first mention of the St Valentine’s feast day associated with romantic love:<
(line 309)
For this was on seynt Volantynys day Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make/ For this was on Saint Valentine’s day, when every bird comes there to choose his mate.
He did not specifically mention February 14th as St. Valentine’s Day, though. The idea of passing love notes (now known as ‘Valentine’s Day cards’) became popular in mid-18th century England. In 1797 there was even a book written – The Young Man’s Valentine Writer – to instruct young men on how to write love notes!
Another character who also appears around Valentine’s Day is Cupid! Cupid is the personification of love, desire, passion and all things romantic. In Roman mythology, he was the god love (the son of Mercury in Venus). In Greek mythology, his name was Eros, the son of Aphrodite. He is always shown as a small chubby boy with a bow and arrow. He aims and shoots his arrow at people and causes them to fall in love!
Do you celebrate Valentine’s Day or a similar day in your country? What do you do on that day?
To learn more about Canada and the holidays we celebrate, check out the Reading page!
Isolated boy in the middle kingdom
February 2, 2011 at 12:06 am (5 years ago)
Hey,Teacher Melanie!
We got Qixi Festival, which is Chinese Valentine’s day in China!That festival celebrated on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month on the Chinese calender by the Chinese people all around the world.Let me walk you through the original story of Qixi.It is absolutely a romantic fantasy!
A young man named Niulang came across with a beautiful girl- Zhinv, who is the seventh daughter of the Goddess. They fell in love when Zhinv escaped from the Heaven just for fun. Then they got married without the permission of Goddess and had two cute children. You know，every day is not Sunday. The goddess soon got the news of Zhinv’s marriage.She was furious and ordered Zhinv to return to Heaven. Niulang was upset about the disappearance of his wife and went up to Heaven to find Zhinv. The Goddess used her hairpin to scratch a river in the sky(so called galaxy) to separate the couple forever. But once a year all the magpies in the world would take pity on them and fly up into heaven to form a bridge,so the lovers may be together for a single night, which is the seventh night of the seventh moon.
Hope you will like it!
Aaron Choo
Teacher Melanie
February 10, 2011 at 7:09 pm (5 years ago)
Aaron!
It’s great to see you here. How did you get around the Great Firewall???
What a beautiful & romantic story! Thanks for telling me about it. There is no force in the world strong enough to keep apart two people in love.
So, will you be spending the day with someone special?!
Take care,
Melanie
= )