Why Chocolate?

.

chocolates, roses, candy, & cards... oh my!

Why we give these gifts on Valentine's Day...

♥

We stuff ourselves and watch football during Thanksgiving, exchange gifts and drink eggnog come Christmas, and ring in New Years with champagne and a kiss.

That's just how it's done.
It's tradition, and it's all that we know.

As we have all gotten older,

we've traded in those little cardboard Valentine's Day cards for real cards,

the little heart-shaped candies for a heart-shaped box of chocolates,

& pink party punch for champagne!

It's just what we do, but do we know why?
Do we know why Valentine's Day is the way that it is?
And why we give these things to our loved ones?

*CHOCOLATE*

We all know that chocolate is an aphrodisiac-
contains an endorphin called phenylethylamine,
levels of which in the brain have been linked to falling in love.
Chocolate has been used as a gift since the days of the Aztecs,
who believed it to be a source of spiritual wisdom, energy and higher sexual prowess.
It was used as a nuptial aid and served at wedding ceremonies.





*ROSES*


February 14th is like 'Black Friday' for florists, accounting for 32% of annual sales.
But why are they associated with love?
Well apparently, in the early 1700's, Charles II of Sweden
brought the Persian poetical art known as the "language of flowers" to Europe.
Throughout the 18th century, ladies loved their floral dictionaries,
which listed the symbolic meanings of different flowers.
The red rose was believed to be
the favored flower of Venus, the Roman Goddess of Love,
and has come to represent romantic love.
And so, giving red roses on Valentine's Day became the thing to do!

*CARDS*


Valentines Day originated from pagan customs
involving animal sacrifice and fertility rituals.
When Christianity arrived,
Catholic Church officials tried to abolish the wild-and-crazy pagan feasts
by creating their own holiday around the same date
and choosing St. Valentine, a saint remembered for his devotion to love.
The Pope kept one pagan ritual, however ...
The one where young, unmarried men chose the names of young,
unmarried women out of a box at random to be matched romantically.
Being the church, though, they substituted saints' names for names of unmarried girls.
Instead of mating, they had to emulate the saint whose name they drew.
So as you can imagine, virile Roman males weren't too crazy about this,
so they established their own custom of sending written greetings of affection,
likely the first Valentine's Day cards, to young ladies of their fancy.
Written Valentines began to appear en masse after 1400
(around the time of the invention of the printing press)






*PINK, RED, & WHITE*



Pink is connected to St. Valentine,
whose burial was said to have caused the pink almond tree to blossom.
Red is a symbol of passion, warmth and the color of the heart!
And white symbolizes purity-
it's purification those naughty pagans were celebrating, after all.





*CUPID*



The mischievous winged cherub is the Roman God of Love
and the son of Venus, the Goddess of Love.
Cupid is derived from the Latin word "cupido"... meaning "desire"

SO there you have it!


Now all of you cynics know that Valentine's Day
wasn't actually invented by card and chocolate companies!
And that we have been celebrating it pretty much the same way for centuries!

♥

A