I take my responsibility to educate readers on important topics very seriously.

After reading this, you now will be able to mesmerize your friends with the history of the holiday and bore your friends with the statistics below.

You will also know precisely where you stand in terms of expenditures for the day. It's important to know, in any given situation if you are cheap or generous.

No holiday Weblog would be complete without some history, correct? Here, direct from Wikipedia and other sources is the history lesson you are craving and are sure to repeat to someone this week because you are so happy that I did the research for you.

Valentine's Day, also called Saint Valentine's Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine, is celebrated annually on February 14. It originated as a Christian feast day honoring a martyr named Valentine and through later folk traditions, it has also become a significant cultural, religious and commercial celebration of romance and love in many regions of the world.

There are a number of martyrdom stories associated with various Saint Valentines connected to February 14, including an account of the imprisonment of Saint Valentine of Rome for ministering to Christians persecuted under the Roman Empire in the third century.

According to an early tradition, Saint Valentine restored sight to the blind daughter of his jailer. Numerous later additions to the legend have better related it to the theme of love: tradition maintains that Saint Valentine performed weddings for Christian soldiers who were forbidden to marry by the Roman emperor; an 18th-century embellishment to the legend claims he wrote the jailer's daughter a letter signed "Your Valentine" as a farewell before his execution.

The 8th-century Gelasian Sacramentary recorded the celebration of the Feast of Saint Valentine on February 14. The day became associated with romantic love in the 14th and 15th centuries when notions of courtly love flourished, apparently by association with the "lovebirds" of early spring.

In 18th-century England, it grew into an occasion for couples to express their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending greeting cards (known as "valentines"). Valentine's Day symbols that are used today include the heart-shaped outline, doves, and the figure of the winged Cupid. In the 19th century, handmade cards gave way to mass-produced greetings.

The well-known and ever-popular Hallmark card was first introduced in 1910 when Hallmark founder J.C. Hall sold postcards for Valentine's Day.

In 1912, the company switched over to greeting cards and the company's first official Valentine's Day cards hit store shelves in 1916. 

Now that you are an expert on the origins of the holiday, here are some statistics, courtesy of Capital One Research.

Top 6 Valentine’s Day Facts for 2025:

• $27.5 Billion: Total Valentine’s Day spending projected for 2025
• $188.81 per person celebrating
• 2X: Men will spend almost twice as much as women, on average
• $11.9 Billion: Amount Americans will spend on jewelry ($6.5B) and a special evening out ($5.4B)

• Consumers budget a nationwide total of $4.4 billion on dinners out.
• The average dinner date costs $31.35 per person or 16.3% of the budget.
• Pet owners spend a total of $2.14 billion on Valentine’s Day gifts for their pets.
• The average owner spends $31.24 on gifts for their dogs and $27.42 for cats.
• Americans spend up to $9.5 billion on Valentine’s Day unwanted gifts.
• Candy is the most popular gift with 50% of adults purchasing for someone else.
• Nearly half of adults actually purchase candy for themselves.
• Included in average spending is $16.71 in flowers and $15.90 in candy.
• Shoppers each spent $45.75 on jewelry.
• Candy first overtook greeting cards as the most popular gift in 2015,

• Today 53% shop for candy and 51% shop for greeting cards.
• Most popular candy: conversation hearts & heart-shaped boxes of chocolates
• 11.4% of Valentine’s Day candy sales are conversation hearts.
• Americans spent an estimated $2.2 billion on Valentine’s Day candy.
• During the week, consumers purchase 58 million pounds of chocolate & candy.
• 9.6% of Valentine’s Day candy sales are heart-shaped boxes of chocolates.
• Tennessee: the only state with Wild Berry Skittles among the top three candies.
• In Alabama, candy necklaces are the most-purchased Valentine’s Day candy.
• There are more flower transactions than on any other holiday.
• 22% of American adults purchase flowers for Valentine’s Day.
• 38% of men and 19% of women purchase flowers for Valentine’s Day.
• 83% of consumers who buy Valentine’s Day flowers purchase roses.
• In preparation for Valentine’s Day, florists stock about 250 million roses.
• Among consumers who purchase flowers and plants, 27% buy live plants.
• 87% of celebrants purchased gifts for their spouse or significant other in 2023.

• Consumers each budgeted an average of $10.38 for colleagues in 2023. 
• Parents budgeted an average of $14.15 for children’s teachers & schoolmates.
• 47% of consumers plan to buy themselves a box of chocolates.
• 39% of Valentine’s candy and gifts go to children.
• 61% of men who purchase flowers gift them to a spouse.
• Women are most likely to give mothers Valentine’s Day flowers (28%)
• Adults buy 145 million Valentine’s greeting cards.
• Men spend almost twice as much as women for Valentine’s Day
• 35- to 44-year-olds outspend all other age groups by 14.3% for Valentine’s Day.
• The average 35- to 44-year-old spent $280 on Valentine’s Day 2022,
• Americans aged 65 years and older underspent all other age groups by 26.9%
• The average American 65 years old and older budgeted $87 for Valentine’s Day

• The average man celebrating Valentine’s Day spends $235.
• The average woman spends $119 or 50.6% as much.
• In 2020, 10% of Valentine’s shoppers went into debt to purchase gifts.
• Valentine’s Day is celebrated among 52% of adults, a 17.5% decline since 2009.
• 40% of consumers shop for Valentine’s greeting cards.
• 37% shop for flowers.
• 21% shop for jewelry.
• 35% of consumers shop online for Valentine’s Day gifts.
• 34% of consumers shop at department stores for Valentine’s Day gifts.
• 31% shop at discount stores for Valentine’s Day.
• 17% shop at small local businesses.
• 16% shop at florists.

• Among Americans with romantic partners, 36% expect partners to spend at least $50 on their Valentine’s Day gift.
• Among Americans with romantic partners, 67% expect their partner to gift them something (from small, token gifts to extravagant gestures) for Valentine’s Day.

From WalletHub: