Valentine’s Day 2017

The Darker (Chocolate) Side of Valentine’s Day

The Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all of whom were martyred. One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine’s actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death.

The Milk Chocolate Side of Valentine’s Day

Americans probably 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 1 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.

The White Chocolate Side of Valentine’s Day

If women buy 85% of all Valentine’s Day cards, that means men buy only 15%! What is up with that?  Imagine if our wives cooked meals only 15% of the time or washed only 15% of the laundry (and it wouldn’t ours, guys!) or she put only 15% of her check into the joint checking account. Things would go south in a hurry!

Men, let’s set a goal of moving that 15% to 17-18% next year!

After all, my man mantra is “I’m just a man, that’s all I’ll ever be – why would you expect more?”

Pastor Mark