Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

When I was in grade school, Valentine’s Day was one of my favorite holidays. There were cards. There was the possibility that your crush actually liked you back. And, there was the chocolate -- so, so much chocolate.

 

Little did I know that the roots of this holiday bore little-to-no resemblance to my childhood experience of it. We were never taught that Valentine's Day actually originated with an arguably gruesome ancient festival, where there was no chocolate or exchange of cute, red-and-pink cards.

 

But love it or hate it, those are the types of things we associate with the holiday today. After all, there's a reason why roughly 114 million Valentine’s Day cards are exchanged each year -- it's what's become expected of us. So how the heck did we get from an ancient Roman festival, to a holiday that compels many of us to spend no less than $147 on celebrating it? That story, it turns out, is thousands of years old -- but we'll try to condense it....

53.9 percent of Americans are going to celebrate Valentine's Day this year and they'll spend $136.57 on average.

Are you among the 62% of adults who say they celebrate Valentine’s Day? Discover the history of the most romantic day of the year in this infographic created in collaboration with History, and find out just how much sparkling wine, chocolate and candy Americans purchase in its honor.

Love is an expensive business and nothing proves it better than Valentine's Day. Few countries take February 14th as seriously as the United States and this year the average American will spend $142.31 on gifts. Men are going to spend nearly twice as much as women with overall sales amounting to a whopping $19 billion, an increase on 2014.

 

$4.8 billion will be splurged on jewelry, $3.6 billion will be spent on date nights while just over $2.1 billion will be set aside for flowers. Interestingly, Valentine's Day isn't just for couples. Other family members, friends and children's classmates/teachers are all set for gifts on February 14th. Somewhat bizzarely, 21.2 percent of Americans will spend a grand total of $703 million on Valentine's Day gifts for their pets!...

On Valentine’s Day, it’s important to tell the people you love that you don’t believe in the concept of true love, and that you expect your relationship to crumble with time, as all things do. Just kidding! You should tell the people you love that you’ll never leave their side, and plan to be buried alive next to them when they die. Actually, that’s probably not a good idea, either. Maybe just tell the people you love that you love them, and show them some Valentine’s Day cartoons.