Love You Hearts
Valentine’s Day isn’t for another week or so, but it’s already on our minds, so we wanted to get you started on an activity that you can begin right now! To get in the spirit, we’ll start with some of the complicated history behind Valentine’s Day.
While still considered a saint, Valentine is no longer a part of the Catholic liturgical calendar because there is such a lack of clarity about who he actually was. There are in fact three different Saint Valentines who may be the true inspiration for the current holiday, and the stories about them include such acts as proselytizing, marrying those who were forbidden to marry (perhaps Christians, perhaps prospective soldiers), and helping Christians escape from Roman prisons. Perhaps he restored the sight of his jailer’s daughter, and perhaps he even fell in love with her and sent her a note signed “From Your Valentine.” Add to that the belief, during the Middle Ages, that mid-February was when birds sought their mates and you’ve got a great recipe for a holiday honoring love and romance (unlike Saint Valentine himself, who is also the patron saint of epileptics and beekeepers, which gives a whole new meaning to all of the insect-themed “Bee Mine” cards exchanged every year). If you’d like to read more about the many Saint Valentines, you can start on history.com and then enjoy some additional trivia from the folks at Mental Floss.
Regardless of its murky origins, today Valentine’s Day is fully devoted to love. And your family can get in on the action by exchanging Love You Hearts (which we found on healthyhappyimpactful.com). All you need is paper! Cut out heart shapes and distribute them to your family members. Each person will choose someone else to give their heart to, and on the heart they’ll write something they love about that person. You can draw names Secret Santa-style or rotate so each person writes for a different person each day. If the younger members of your family aren’t able to write independently yet, you can have the grown-ups be in charge of giving out the hearts or, preferably, just help them with theirs!
What makes this activity really special is that the hearts are placed on the recipient’s door so they’ll get to see their “Love You” first thing in the morning. And if you start tomorrow, each person will receive eight hearts. That’s over a week of waking up feeling truly loved! What a wonderful way to start the day.
We’d love to see what your Love You Hearts look like! Share with us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
