Kang's Black Belt Academy
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Friday, February 1, 2013 Happy Valentine’s Day! According to History.com, in addition to the United States, Valentine’s
Day is celebrated in Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France, and Australia.
5:56 am est In Great Britain, Valentine’s Day began to be popularly celebrated around the 17th century. By the middle of the 18th, it was common for friends and lovers of all social classes to exchange small tokens of affection or handwritten notes, and by 1900, printed cards began to replace written letters, thanks to improvements in printing technology. Ready-made cards were an easy way for people to express their emotions in a time when direct expression of one’s feelings was discouraged. Cheaper postage rates also contributed to an increase in the popularity of sending Valentine’s Day greetings. Americans most likely began exchanging hand-made valentines in the early 1700s. In the 1840s, Esther A. Howland began selling the first mass-produced valentines in America. Howland, known as the “Mother of the Valentine,” made elaborate creations with real lace, ribbons, and colorful pictures known as “scrap.” Today, according to the Greeting Card Association, an estimated one billion Valentine’s Day cards are sent each year, making Valentine’s Day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year. An estimated 2.6 billion cards are sent for Christmas. Women purchase approximately 85 percent of all valentines. With our school’s theme of Acceptance this month, how about sending a valentine to someone you have not spoken to for months, or maybe even years? Was the disagreement or argument really worth losing a friend or family member? Was it something that, in hindsight, you should have accepted? Barring physical, emotional, or mental pain, could we have been okay that we were not invited to their party? |
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