Valentine’s Day is almost upon us and love is in the air. But how much do you know about the heart-filled holiday and the traditions we use to celebrate it? Here are some fun facts about Valentine’s Day.<\/p>\n

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* Pope Gelasius I<\/span> first declared February 14 St. Valentine’s Day in 496.<\/strong><\/p>\n

He was hoping to take over the pagan festival of Lupercalia, which the Romans celebrated on February 15. Interestingly, the Catholic Church dropped St. Valentine’s Day from the Roman calendar of official, worldwide Catholic feasts in 1969, according to AmericanCatholic.org. Apparently, there wasn’t a lot of love there for Valentine’s Day. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist) That’s due in large part to the questionable facts surrounding the holiday and the fact that St. Valentine could refer to at least three different individuals. Apparently, Valentine was a hugely popular name in Rome at the time and it’s hard to sort them all out.<\/p>\n

That may also explain why the day has morphed from “St. Valentine’s Day” to just “Valentine’s Day.”<\/p>\n

* California grows the most roses in the United States, but it’s likely your pretty flowers will come from somewhere else.<\/strong><\/p>\n

California produces approximately 60% of the roses grown in the United States. (Guess it is not an accident that the state is also home to the Rose Bowl.) The majority of flowers purchased in the U.S. for Valentine’s Day, however, are grown in South America.<\/p>\n

* When you call someone to tell them you love them, there’s a Valentine’s Day connection.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray filed an application the United States Patent and Trademark Office\u00a0 on Feb. 14, 1876\u00a0for a patent on the telephone.<\/p>\n

<\/a>* The chocolate industry is based on four holidays: Valentines Day, Easter, Halloween and Christmas. Which season is the biggest for chocolate sales?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Surprisingly, it is not Valentine’s Day. Who knew? It is actually Christmas. Feb. 13 and 14 are the largest individual days but the Christmas season lasts longer than Valentine season, meaning more sales, says Businessweek.<\/p>\n

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* It wouldn’t be Valentine’s Day without conversation hearts,<\/strong> the candy hearts with messages on them. They’ve had a long time to establish themselves as Valentine staples, given that they were first created in 1866.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A man named Daniel Chase invented a machine that could use food dye to print the messages on candy made his brother’s company, Necco.<\/p>\n

* Valentine’s Day is the second most popular holiday for giving cards, behind Christmas.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Greeting Card Association (GCA) expects people to spend $1.029 billion buying approxiately 145 million cards this year, the same amount as last year, reports The Greeting Card Association.<\/p>\n

* You don’t have to actually exist to receive a Valentine card.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Italian city of Verona, the setting of Romeo and Juliet, receives around 1,000 valentines addressed to Juliet each year, according to StValentinesDay.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You may also like: <\/strong>13 fun facts and trivia about Mardi Gras<\/a><\/p>\n

Prior post: <\/strong>7 tips for surviving the heat at Disney with little ones<\/a><\/p>\n

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Valentine’s Day is almost upon us and love is in the air. But how much do you know about the heart-filled holiday and the traditions we use to celebrate it? Here are some fun facts about Valentine’s Day. * Pope Gelasius I first declared February 14 St. Valentine’s Day in 496. He was hoping to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4065,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1352"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1352"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9302,"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1352\/revisions\/9302"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betweenusparents.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}