For Valentine's Day

When I was a little girl I loved the different holidays, Christmas being my favorite as it is to this day. . In those days  my mother made most of my cloths. I did not have a lot , school cloths, (back then I wore skirts and dresses to school,) play cloths and best cloths for church and get togethers with relatives on holidays. For Easter I was given new cloths and I enjoyed seeing everyone dressed up with hats and gloves. Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas were feast days. I have always loved good food. Halloween was fun to get dressed up and go trick and treat. For Valentine’s day all the children in my class in grammar school would bring valentine cards and we would put them into a decorated box.and then draw them out one by one. I can remember putting my favorite ones into a scrap book. My grammar school had 8 rooms one for each grade. and the valentine box was a tradition every year. 

After art school I had a job as a greeting card designer.  As a little girl I drew animals dressed as people, and real animals like deer, rabbits and such and I liked fairies and little people so I have always liked cards and illustrated children books.

Here is a short history of Valentine’s Day. . St Valentine  was a priest from Rome in the third century AD. He secretly married soldiers,. Marriage for soldiers  was forbidden  by  Emperor Claudius. Valentine was thrown in jail and sentenced to death.There, he fell in love with the jailer's daughter and when he was taken to be killed on 14 February he sent her a love letter signed "from your Valentine".

The Romans had a festival called Lupercalia in the middle of February - officially the start of their springtime.t's thought that as part of the celebrations, boys drew names of girls from a box. They'd be boyfriend and girlfriend during the festival and sometimes they'd get married.

Later on, the church wanted to turn this festival into a Christian celebration and decided to use it to remember St Valentine too.Gradually, St Valentine's name started to be used by people to express their feelings to those they loved. 

I have a great collection of Christmas cards that I have saved through  the years and every Christmas I hang them  on ribbons  taped to doors and other places.I can’t remember getting Valentines after grammar school  so I decided to look them up on the computer and found every kind imaginable. I am celebrating  Valentine’s day this year, printing out on my computer some of the beautiful, cute and funny cards I found. 

This day is mostly for lovers or those that love one another. Love needs to be expanded, because the word has a narrow meaning when it really encompasses everything. I believe everything is created from love. It is an emotion that can’t be defined only felt. Here are some of the actions that love creates, passion, compassion, respect, forgiveness, surrender, kindness, deep affection, enjoyment, caring, appreciation for. It is action, a force, It is entanglement, It is giving and receiving. Everything needs love or it withers  or even dies. One can also love nature, for its beauty and the peaceful feeling it emanates. So I think we should up grade Valentines’s day and send our love forth. Who knows , it may bring peace to the planet.