Valentine el Cheapo?

[Pressing-On]

Originally Posted by ILG

Crisco??? No way!!!!That is the worst stuff ever!

And TWO cups to boot! Did you see the scene in The Help where Minny tells Celia that you can use Crisco to rub into your husband's feet to keep them soft? And we thought baby oil turned them on. Think what Crisco would do! OOOps, don't read that, Berk.

[ILG]

Originally Posted by Pressing-On

And TWO cups to boot! Did you see the scene in The Help where Minny tells Celia that you can use Crisco to rub into your husband's feet to keep them soft? And we thought baby oil turned them on. Think what Crisco would do! OOOps, don't read that, Berk.

Well, I use, um, expeller-pressed liquid coconut oil. *cough*

[Pressing-On]

Originally Posted by ILG

Well, I use, um, expeller-pressed liquid coconut oil. *cough*

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!

Bratti is going to close this thread before long.

[ILG]

Originally Posted by Pressing-On

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!

Bratti is going to close this thread before long.

Not before she throws in her two cents! LOL!

[Pressing-On]

Originally Posted by ILG

Not before she throws in her two cents! LOL!

[MissBrattified]

Oh, dear. LOL!!!! Yep, you guys are going to get the thread closed.

[Pressing-On]

Originally Posted by MissBrattified

Oh, dear. LOL!!!! Yep, you guys are going to get the thread closed.

It's all about the candy...

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by KeptByTheWord

We are really watching our pennies this year. Valentine's Day is around the corner. I'm looking for ideas to make V-Day special, but not expensive. Ideas anyone?

Valentine's Day is a pagan festival, so you could save money by ignoring it.

http://www.witchology.com/contents/f...nes_static.php

Pagan Origins of a Popular Christian Festival
As an estimated one billion cards* are exchanged this St Valentine's Day spare a thought for the ancient Pagan custom that the Catholic Church has tried to hide from you, for St Valentine's Day is the Eve of Lupercalia, the Pagan Roman festival of fertility.

Love is a Lottery
In fact, the 14th of February was the day specially set aside for love lotteries in Pagan Rome. A holiday devoted to Juno, Queen of the Gods, and patroness of marriage, the 14th was also the day on which young girls' names were written on slips of paper and thrown into jars to be picked out by the boys. Chooser and chosen would then be partnered for the duration of the Lupercalia festival. Such arbitrary pairings often resulted in lasting relationships. The Catholic Church later substituted the names of dead saints in place of those of flesh-and-blood girls to subvert the lusty Pagan practice.

The Lupercalia proper began on the 15th of February with animal sacrifice and ritual flagellation. After slaughtering a goat and dog in the sacred grotto of the she-wolf who suckled the legendary founders of Rome, the young men would run through the streets whipping women and crops with the flayed hide of the goat to promote fertility. Archaeological evidence suggests that the Lupercalia, far from being restricted to Rome, was practised in other cities in Italy and Gaul.

Dating from remotest antiquity, the Lupercalia was celebrated until as late as the reign of Anastasius I in 491-518 CE. It was towards the end of the 5th century in 498 CE that Pope Galesius decided to dedicate the Eve of Lupercalia to the long-dead priest. The lottery system was banned as being un-Christian and the Pope did his best to make people forget about other un-Christian ideas such as fertility.

Mating Season
However, the Pagan principles of the people proved irrepressible. Memories of the Roman Lupercalia combined with folklore beliefs in Britain and France that the 14th of February marked the beginning of the mating season amongst birds to ensure that this day would persist in the popular imagination as a day of love.

The oldest extant Valentine message is a poem written by Charles, Duke of Orleans, in 1415 to his wife. He had good reason to write: he was imprisoned in the Tower of London after being captured at the Battle of Agincourt. It proved a popular idea and some years later it is believed that Henry V hired John Lydgate to compose a Valentine missive to Catherine of Valois.

Despite such early precedents, St Valentine's Day did not become a widely celebrated event in Britain until the 17th century. Printed cards did not appear until the late 18th century, but it was not until the 1840's that Esther A. Howland entered the history books as the first person to sell the first mass-produced Valentine cards in the United States.

The Magic of Love or Love Magic?
But why send a card and why make it anonymous? Either we believe one of the Christian legends and accept that we all celebrate the giving of a love token of 3rd century priest by sending a replica, or look deeper into the significances of giving and anonymity. The act of giving, stripped of any moral sentiment, is usually one of status modification, for example, how many times do you hear people boasting of how they give to charity? However, in this instance the giver's identity is carefully concealed. The card itself acts simply as the vehicle of the giver's desire. The message that accompanies such cards is most often in the imperative, Be My Valentine, Be My Love, and so on. The structure of this exchange is remarkably similar to many magical formulae.

Christians Against the Fun
Even the Christians, originally responsible for foisting St Valentine on this festival, are re-assessing their position. Biblestudy.org, amongst many others, has come clean and admitted that Valentine's Day has nothing to do with a long dead saint, and everything to do with our Pagan heritage. Of course, they were horrified and immediately wanted to ban it:

It is about time we examined these customs of the pagans now falsely labeled Christian. It is time we quit this Roman and Babylonian foolishness - this idolatry - and get back to the faith of Christ delivered once for all time. Let's stop teaching our children these pagan customs in memory of Baal the sun god - the original St. Valentine - and teach them instead what the Bible really says!
So, the next time you ask someone to be your Valentine, try not to forget that you are engaging in a millennia old fertility rite and, what is more, dabbling in a little magic to boot.

http://www.npr.org/2011/02/14/133693...valentines-day

Valentine's Day is a time to celebrate romance and love and kissy-face fealty. But the origins of this festival of candy and cupids are actually dark, bloody — and a bit muddled.

Though no one has pinpointed the exact origin of the holiday, one good place to start is ancient Rome, where men hit on women by, well, hitting them.

Those Wild and Crazy Romans

From Feb. 13 to 15, the Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia. The men sacrificed a goat and a dog, then whipped women with the hides of the animals they had just slain.

The Roman romantics "were drunk. They were naked," says Noel Lenski, a historian at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Young women would actually line up for the men to hit them, Lenski says. They believed this would make them fertile.

The brutal fete included a matchmaking lottery, in which young men drew the names of women from a jar. The couple would then be, um, coupled up for the duration of the festival – or longer, if the match was right.

The ancient Romans may also be responsible for the name of our modern day of love. Emperor Claudius II executed two men — both named Valentine — on Feb. 14 of different years in the 3rd century A.D. Their martyrdom was honored by the Catholic Church with the celebration of St. Valentine's Day.

Later, Pope Gelasius I muddled things in the 5th century by combining St. Valentine's Day with Lupercalia to expel the pagan rituals. But the festival was more of a theatrical interpretation of what it had once been. Lenski adds, "It was a little more of a drunken revel, but the Christians put clothes back on it. That didn't stop it from being a day of fertility and love."

Around the same time, the Normans celebrated Galatin's Day. Galatin meant "lover of women." That was likely confused with St. Valentine's Day at some point, in part because they sound alike.


As the years went on, the holiday grew sweeter. Chaucer and Shakespeare romanticized it in their work, and it gained popularity throughout Britain and the rest of Europe. Handmade paper cards became the tokens-du-jour in the Middle Ages.

Eventually, the tradition made its way to the New World. The industrial revolution ushered in factory-made cards in the 19th century. And in 1913, Hallmark Cards of Kansas City, Mo., began mass producing valentines. February has not been the same since.

Today, the holiday is big business: According to market research firm IBIS World, Valentine's Day sales reached $17.6 billion last year; this year's sales are expected to total $18.6 billion.

But that commercialization has spoiled the day for many. Helen Fisher, a sociologist at Rutgers University, says we have only ourselves to blame.

"This isn't a command performance," she says. "If people didn't want to buy Hallmark cards, they would not be bought, and Hallmark would go out of business."

And so the celebration of Valentine's Day goes on, in varied ways. Many will break the bank buying jewelry and flowers for their beloveds. Others will celebrate in a SAD (that's Single Awareness Day) way, dining alone and binging on self-gifted chocolates. A few may even be spending this day the same way the early Romans did. But let's not go there.

[MissBrattified]

Originally Posted by wikipedia

"St. Valentine's Day began as a liturgical celebration of one or more early Christian saints named Valentinus. Several martyrdom stories were invented for the various Valentines that belonged to February 14, and added to later martyrologies.[2] A popular hagiographical account of Saint Valentine of Rome states that he was imprisoned for performing weddings for soldiers who were forbidden to marry and for ministering to Christians, who were persecuted under the Roman Empire. According to legend, during his imprisonment, he healed the daughter of his jailer, Asterius. An embellishment to this story states that before his execution he wrote her a letter signed "Your Valentine" as a farewell.[3] Today, Saint Valentine's Day is an official feast day in the Anglican Communion,[4] as well as in the Lutheran Church.[5] The Eastern Orthodox Church also celebrates Saint Valentine's Day, albeit on July 6th and July 30th, the former date in honor of the Roman presbyter Saint Valentine, and the latter date in honor of Hieromartyr Valentine, the Bishop of Interamna (modern Terni). In Brazil, the Dia de São Valentim is recognized on June 12.

The day was first associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished. In 18th-century England, it evolved into an occasion in which lovers expressed 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. Since the 19th century, handwritten valentines have given way to mass-produced greeting cards.[6]"--SOURCE

Chaucer & St. Valentine's Day

Originally Posted by wikipedia

"...Lupercalia
Main article: Lupercalia
There is no evidence of any link between St. Valentine's Day and the rites of the ancient Roman festival, despite many claims by many authors.[15][37][notes 1] The celebration of Saint Valentine did not have any romantic connotations until Chaucer's poetry about "Valentines" in the 14th century.[21]

Popular modern sources claim links to unspecified Greco-Roman February holidays alleged to be devoted to fertility and love to St. Valentine's Day, but prior to Chaucer in the 14th century, there were no links between the Saints named Valentinus and romantic love.[21] Earlier links as described above were focused on sacrifice rather than romantic love. In the ancient Athenian calendar the period between mid-January and mid-February was the month of Gamelion, dedicated to the sacred marriage of Zeus and Hera.

In Ancient Rome, Lupercalia, observed February 13–15, was an archaic rite connected to fertility. Lupercalia was a festival local to the city of Rome. The more general Festival of Juno Februa, meaning "Juno the purifier "or "the chaste Juno", was celebrated on February 13–14. Pope Gelasius I (492–496) abolished Lupercalia. Some researchers have theorized that Gelasius I replaced Lupercalia with the celebration of the Purification of Mary in February 14 and claim a connection to the 14th century's connotations of romantic love, but there is no historical indication that he ever intended such a thing.[notes 2][38] Also, the dates don't fit because at the time of Gelasius I the feast was only celebrated in Jerusalem, and it was on February 14 only because Jerusalem placed the Nativity on January 6th.[notes 3] Although it was called "Purification of Mary", it dealt mainly with the presentation of Jesus at the temple.[39] The Jerusalem's Purification of Mary in February 14 became the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple in February 2 as it was introduced to Rome and other places in the sixth century, after Gelasius I's time.[40]

Alban Butler in his Lifes of the Principal Saints (1756–1759) claimed without proof that men and women in Lupercalia drew names from a jar to make couples, and that modern Valentine's letters originated from this custom. In reality, this practice originated in the Middle Ages, with no link to Lupercalia, with men drawing the names of girls at random to couple with them. This custom was combated by priests, for example by Frances de Sales around 1600, apparently by replacing it with a religious custom of girls drawing the names of apostles from the altar. However, this religious custom is recorded as soon as the 13th century in the life of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, so it could have a different origin.[15]"--SOURCE

[Esaias]

Well we all know Wikipedia is the endgame of all knowledge and debate, lol.

The Lupercalia is a fact, the rituals of Valentine's Day are replications of the Lupercalia. Everyone knows it except Christians who continue its observance. The Wiccans know it, the neo-pagans know it, the catholics know it, the Protestants knew it, even NPR knows it.

And now AFF knows it. lol