According to the Greeting Card Association, many Americans enjoy celebrating Valentine’s Day. It is estimated that one billion Valentine cards are sent each year, making Valentine's Day the second largest card-sending event of the year. What’s first? You guessed it. An estimated 2.6 billion cards are sent at Christmas.

Endless love…The History of Valentine’s Day

Originally a pagan love festival, the Roman feast of Lupercalia was Christianized in memory of the martyr-priest, St. Valentine, who was killed in AD 270. Possibly because his feast on February 14 was close to the fertility festival Lupercalia, Valentine became known as a patron of lovers. During the Middle Ages, Valentine became associated with the union of lovers under conditions of duress.

Valentine's Day became popular in Great Britain in the seventeenth century. By the middle of the eighteenth century, it was common practice for friends and lovers in every social class to exchange small tokens of affection or handwritten notes. Printed cards became the vogue by the end of the century. The rest is history as the tradition spread to America, Canada, Mexico, France, and Australia.

A Modern Way to Enjoy an Ancient Celebration

Looking for Valentine’s Day links on the Internet is certainly an experience. It seems that a search on Valentine’s Day leads to love, which leads to sex, which leads to many of the shall-we-say more risqué areas of the Net. However, in my wanderings I found some cute, wholesome sites that you may want to peruse. 

Greetings for Your Valentine

Be sure to visit the AARP’s free greeting card service   where you will find a variety of free electronic greeting cards. Choose a traditional greeting for your honey like “Be Mine,” or send a “Big Hug” to anyone who needs it. One of my other favorite greeting card sites, Blue Mountain Arts, has recently started charging for many of their cards, but if you don’t find a card you like at the AARP Web site, you may want to visit Blue Mountain to see what they have to offer. If you would like to send a really memorable greeting, order a Singing Valentine   for your loved one delivered by a live barbershop quartet.

For the Family

For heart-filled kitchen creations, visit the Epicurious Valentine’s Day area. Home of Bon Appetit and Gourmet Magazines, the Epicurious site gives some great recipes for heart shaped food, like the mouth-watering Chocolate Truffle Linzer Heart. There is plenty of other great love-related information here as well. It’s the place to surf to if you want to learn about setting a romantic table, and you’ll even find articles like “Nectar Meets Ambrosia,” a listing of beers that pair well with chocolate.

For more Valentine’s Day family fun, visit About.com’s Valentine Fun for Families which provides links to Valentine content all over the Web, as well as giving ideas for kid’s Valentine parties, games and crafts for kids, and Valentine activities for fun and learning.

Get Smaltzy

Enjoy Love Letters compliments of the US Postal Service, which shares an impressive collection of love letters. Love letters and notes from such famous people as Napoleon Bonaparte, Oliver Cromwell, and other successful authors and well-known figures are especially appropriate to review at this time of year.

Be sure to use the Internet to help you enjoy Valentine’s Day, whatever your romantic status. And remember that true love is in the eye of the beholder.  After all, it was Henry VIII who officially declared February 14th as the day when a message of everlasting love should be delivered to your object of desire. Remember Henry had many objects of desire; he was married six times.