Frank Sinatra once asked in his song, Funny Valentine, “Is your figure less than greek?” And the answer is actually yes, because Saint Valentine was a Roman, and fortunately for us, he was a romantic too. A priest in ancient Rome, Saint Valentine dispelled the authority of the emperor by secretly marrying young soldiers to their significant others. St. Valentine was eventually caught, and tragically, his crimes were punishable by death. The legend is furthered by stories of newly wed couples ushering roses and letters through Valentine’s jail cell to thank him for his actions. And right before his execution, it is said that his last love letter was famously signed, “From, your Valentine.”
Unlike most great romances, Saint Valentine did not die for love. Rather, he died for the love of love, and I believe that makes all the difference. So that’s the theme of these six facts; that the driving force behind Valentine’s Day is not our need to have love, but our need to give love away. Through candy, chocolate and, most importantly, cards, it proves that, just like Saint Valentine, we believe that love is worth our sharing our words (and, apparently, our money).
Fact 1: In order of popularity, Valentine’s Day cards are given to teachers, children, wives, sweethearts and pets. This means that just behind our professors, us single UT students have a good chance of getting at least one Valentine from our parents. And more importantly, it means we’re more likely to get one than our pets.
Fact 2: 2.8 billion candy hearts will be produced this year. Apparently, that’s enough candy to stretch from Rome all the way to Valentine, Arizona over twenty times there and back again. In other words, it is enough to literally shower half the world with love .
Fact 3: 36 million boxes of chocolate will be sold on Valentine’s Day. This is good because studies have shown that when we eat chocolate, endorphins are released into our brain. That’s the same chemical that is released in our bodies during hugging or kissing. So even if you don’t have another person to cuddle with on Valentines Day, see chocolate. According to this statistics, there’s plenty to go around.
Fact 4: The average number of roses produced for Valentine’s Day is 196 million stems. To put this in perspective, the largest natural flower garden in the world has only 45 million flowers. Collectively, we are giving to each other more roses at one time and in one (fairly) condensed space than mother nature has decided to give to us.
Fact 5: 15% of women send themselves flowers on Valentine’s Day. And why not? To (kinda) quote Shakespeare, “a rose [given by any other person] would smell as sweet.”
Fact 6: 151 million cards will be bought on Valentine’s Day. There will be funny ones, romantic ones, the cards for your mom, and the ones for your dogs too, roses will be red and and violets will be (you guessed it) blue. But whatever card you pick, just remember that they all are copies of the real thing; they’re a Saint Valentine original.