And NOW...something Vitally important!!

[KichigaiNeko]

Actually, St Valentine's Day seems to be as phony as everything else associated with xtianity.

Historian Jack Oruch has made the case that the traditions associated with "Valentine's Day", documented in Geoffrey Chaucer's Parliament of Foules and set in the fictional context of an old tradition, had no such tradition before Chaucer.[20] He argues that the speculative explanation of sentimental customs, posing as historical fact, had their origins among 18th-century antiquaries, notably Alban Butler, the author of Butler's Lives of Saints, and have been perpetuated even by respectable modern scholars. In the French 14th-century manuscript illumination from a Vies des Saints (illustration above), Saint Valentine, bishop of Terni, oversees the construction of his basilica at Terni; there is no suggestion here yet that the bishop was a patron of lovers

All absolutely true Min... I like to think that the whole "Lovers" thingy is a hark back to the end of winter (but still too early for spring) that was celebrated at Imbolc (?)

For me though..I really don't need an Historical reason to mark the 14th February as something special. Here it is almost the end of the "Fire Season" and the beginning of a time when the temperature is cool enough to 'knoodle' with out breaking into a sweat.