Valentine’s Day means love, chocolate and spending

It’s Feb. 14 once again, which means candy, flowers and cupid rule the day. Valentine’s Day has always been a holiday people either love or hate.

Stefeny Schermerhorn, 20, said she feels that whether you’re in a relationship or not, it “sucks” and “you’re still going to feel lonely.”

“I got a ring last year,” Schermerhorn said. “It still didn’t fill the chocolate void.”

Scott Henry, 37, had a different view on Valentine’s Day.“It’s a great holiday,” Henry said, “but I think society and media have taken it to levels it never should have.”

Henry plans on taking his loved one to dinner.

Chocolates, flowers and candy hearts hit the shelves every February to celebrate

Valentine’s Day. And even with only 54% of people celebrating this year, according to the National Retail Federation, total spending is expected to reach 17.3 billion.

This year, the holiday will be spent going out to eat, giving gifts, showing your loved one you care or pretending Valentine’s Day doesn’t exist. But how did we get to this point?

Valentine’s Day has become to many the “Hallmark Holiday,” but dates back to the Roman festival of Lupercalia, which was celebrated on Feb. 15. The festival is believed to have started around 753 BC. The event was based around the rite of fertility and animal sacrifices, whipping of celebrants and young men drawing names of young women to be paired with until the following year.

Then, in 496 AD, Pope Gelasius decided that Lupercalia would be merged into a Christian holiday dedicated to the celebration of love, based on a Roman man who was imprisoned for helping Christians and fell in love with the jailer’s daughter before he was executed on Feb. 14.

Then, in the Middle Ages, men would draw the name of a woman on St. Valentine’s Eve and wear it on his sleeve for a year. The man would be the protector of that woman and they would exchange gifts during the year. They would also give heart shaped notes that became known as “valentines.”

The holiday continued and lost it’s connections to religion in the 1800s. Hearts and the son of the goddess of love became the key symbols of the Valentine’s Day we know today. 12