Valentine's Day

Public doman image from Wikipedia.

Happy Valentine's Day to all of you out there who celebrate it. I'm not really all that into it & find the modern day commercialism of it to be rather annoying. Wikipedia's entry on Antivalentinism more or less covers my feelings on the cultural imperative to express your love for someone by buying them chocolate &/or flowers, etc. At least sending valentines is actually a long-standing tradition, having been around for a good seven centuries or so. From my lazy 'research' (Wikipedia) on it, Valentine's Day as a day for lovers seems to have been concocted by Chaucer in his Parlement of Foules. Or at least his work is the first thing in the historical record on it, anyway.