A Valentine's Day Special a celebration of love around the world

CEBU, Philippines - February is a month associated with Valentine’s Day celebration. I think it is considered as one of the occasions when people around the world show love to their sweethearts, loved ones, and offer them all the best gifts they can find. Let us travel to some countries and find out how people from place to place differ in ways and customs in celebrating this well-known festival.

This is an informative article on Valentine’s Day celebrations around the world. (http://www.theholidayspot.com/valentine/around_the_world.htm)

United States

In the United States and Canada, Valentine’s Day is an extremely popular festival. Here, the day is observed as a holiday. Originally held to honor St Valentine and express love to sweethearts, the scope of the day has come to be so widened that it has now become an occasion to express gratitude and love not only to sweethearts and spouses, but also to teachers, parents or any other close relation or acquaintance. The modern celebration of the day has people giving their dear ones gifts that include popular items as cards, fresh flowers like roses, chocolates and candies. Dinner and dance parties are specially organized all over the country to celebrate the occasion. Many couples hold private celebrations in homes or restaurants. Sending candies on Valentine’s Day has been a very popular tradition and it still is.

In the US, children celebrate Valentine’s Day with great enthusiasm. In keeping with their interest, many schools hold Valentine’s Day programmes where little students perform songs, dances, skits and plays. Kids handcraft gifts and cards on this occassion and present them to their friends and teachers. In some schools, the children organize a classroom party and put all the valentines into a box they have decorated. The celebration culminates with a teacher or child distributing the cards. Older students construct candy baskets and gifts, and place on them cards trimmed with hearts and fat, winged children called cupids. They also organize dances and parties. A collective endeavor is made to make the day a special one.

Britain

In Britain, St Valentine’s Day is celebrated with great fanfare and gaiety. Like in many other countries, the common celebrations of the day has people expressing love with gifts like flowers, cards, chocolates and other special items. The traditions of the celebrations of Valentine’s Day differ in different regions of the country but one uniform custom is the singing of special songs by children. All over Britain, children sing special songs related to the occasion and are rewarded with gifts like candy, fruit or money. Another popular tradition followed in some areas of England is the baking of valentine buns with caraway seeds, plums, or raisins. This is believed to be a way of celebrating agrarian productivity. This connection with fertility and the similar date of celebration are probably the reasons why many writers link the festival of Lupercalia with Valentine’s Day.

Composing verses is another extremely well- known Valentine’s Day custom of Britain. About a month earlier to Valentine’s Day, leading tabloids and reputed magazines publish sonnets and verses to commemorate the occasion. The tradition owes its origin to the British poets who penned some of the best love poems and the majority of the romantic verses associated with Saint Valentine.

Italy

In Italy, Valentine’s Day was once celebrated as a Spring Festival. It used to be held in the open air, where young people would gather in brightly decorated gardens to listen to music and the reading of poetry. This custom, however, steadily ceased with the passage of time, and has been out of practice for a long time. In modern day Italy, Valentine’s Day is mainly seen as a holiday imported from US, just like Halloween, Father’s Day or Mother’s Day. The day is seen here earmarked exclusively for lovers, and hence, family members and friends do not exchange gifts. Couples usually go out for dinners at pizzeria or ristorante, which ends with the lovers’ giving gifts to each other. A popular Valentine’s Day gift in Italy is Baci Perugina - a small, chocolate-covered hazelnut containing a small slip of paper with a romantic poetic quote in four languages.

Denmark

In Denmark, February 14 is mainly a day for the young. It is a time for romance and exchanging of love tokens. Here, the festival is celebrated in a very conventional manner. Young people send to their beloved a valentine card on this occasion. The Danish valentine card is famously known as a “lover’s card”. Earlier, these came in the form of transparent cards which, when placed before a light, reflected the picture of a lover handing over a wonderful present to his beloved. Nowadays, many newer varieties of lover’s cards have come up and every year before Valentine’s Day card shops all across the country are seen to be stacked up with colorful and musical lover’s cards containing lovely Valentine messages. Another Danish Valentine’s Day custom is to send pressed white flowers called Snowdrops to friends. The season of love is also a time for fun what with many Danish men sending to their ladylove a form of valentine known as a gaekkebrev (or “joking letter”). This gaekkebrev is a type of romantic letter that contains a rhyme penned by the sender himself. The fun part of this custom is that the letter doesn’t have the name of the sender. Instead, the lover signs the message with dots...one dot for each letter in his name. If the lady whom he sends the gaekkebrev correctly guesses his name, he rewards her with an Easter egg during Eastertide.

Japan

In Japan, Valentine’s Day is observed on February 14 but the celebration of love truly ends on March 14, known as the “White Day”. On the first date, women present chocolates or gifts to the men they love to express their feelings for them. Gifting of chocolates is a typical way to celebrate Valentine’s Day in Japan for chocolate is the most popular gift in the country. Hence, it is a must for Japanese Valentine’s Day celebrations. Gift shops all over Japan pile their shelves with chocolate a month before Valentine’s Day. Most Japanese females believe however, that store-bought chocolate is not a gift of true love. Hence, they tend to make the confection all by themselves.

However, it is also common for women to give chocolates to any man close to them, such as co-workers and male friends, whom they do not actually love. This kind of chocolate-gift is called giri-choco, which means chocolates given because of obligations. Men who receive chocolates or gifts on Valentine’s Day are supposed to return the favour to the women on March 14, exactly a month after Valentine’s Day. Also known as “White Day”, this is the time when men are to give back a gift to the women who gave them gifts just a month before. The tradition is believed to have been introduced by a marshmallow company in the 1960s.

Korea

The Valentine’s Day celebration in Korea is quite similar to the Japanese observance of the festival. As in Japan, Korea witnesses gifting of chocolates and candies from females to males. The favour is returned the same way by the men on March 14, which is referred to as “White Day” similar to the custom in Japan. But “White Day” here is a Valentine’s day in its own right as many young men confess their love for the first time to their sweethearts on this occasion. Then there is April 14, also known as “Black Day”, which has been specially set aside for those young people who have no particular romantic partners. The curious name of the day probably comes from the fact that on this date, individuals who are not in any relationship get together and partake of Jajang noodles, which are black in color.

Germany

The German celebration of Valentine’s Day is nearly the same as elsewhere in the world. For Germans, the festival is a celebration of love and a time to spend with their sweethearts. In Germany, it is customary for a young man to present his beloved with flowers on February 14. Valentine gifts in Germany are usually in the shape of love tokens, complete with lovely messages. But these are not entirely restricted to Valentine’s Day celebrations, and can be gifted on any occasion of a joyous nature.

Philippines

 Filipinos present red roses to their Valentines as an acknowledgment of their boundless love for them. Those who are in a search of a perfect match, wear red shirts. All the public places seem filled with couples joining hands and giving surprises to their dates.

Valentine’s Day unites people in the Philippines removing all ethnic and cultural tags.14th of February is celebrated with full spirit throughout Philippines (http://EzineArticles.com/3594479).

Valentine’s Day celebration may differ in various aspects of the life of the people around the world, but it brings us to one common denominator through the example of St. Valentine, the person behind this celebration- a man who became saint because of his of faith in God that led him to his martyrdom, his shedding of blood because of LOVE.

 May the prayer of St. Valentine help us who, at many times, lack courage in expressing our gratitude and love to God, to our family, to our relatives, to our friends, to our loved ones, and to the rest of God’s creation. (FREEMAN)