So, we are already now into February, the long associated and celebrated month of love and romance. The day of romance we call Valentine's is surrounded by myths and hearsay, nothing absolute. However, I have chosen a few nuggets of information I liked to illustrate the day. It is said to be named for a Christian martyr and dates back to the 5th Century, early Christian Church and ancient Roman and Pagan festivals.
According to a classics professor, young men would dance around nakedly and use strips of sacrificed animal skin as whips to spank young women's behinds to aid fertility for that year. Well! I am not sure what my ladies would say about that, well actually I do know, but that's not to be published!
"From your Valentine" is said to derive from a Roman martyr who was executed on February 14th and apparently signed off a letter to his beau in this way before his execution.
By the mid 18th Century, passing of 'love notes' becomes popular in England, a forerunner to the valentines day cards that we know today. Early ones were made from paper and lace. By the 19th Century they became so popular that factories started to mass produce cards.
Today it seems that a series of celebratory days have been tarnished by mass production, consumerism and retail commercialism, promoting more of the idea of an urgency and a need to spend money rather than creating or gifting a heartfelt sentiment. This upsets me a lot. This is also a reason why we use as much reclaimed and salvaged items as we can and are very conscious about our waste to help create a low environmentally impacting business. It's a small gesture as we are a small business and we plan to remain eco friendly and not create huge amounts of unnecessary products, but that is all for a different blog post...
