AS most of you already know, Saint Valentine’s Day, a holiday honouring lovers. Celebrated throughout the world on February 14, the custom involves sending greeting cards, gifts or flowers to your dear and loved ones to express your affection for them. And though a number of you out there may not be the romantic kind, (we have a couple of sites for you guys as well), still you have got to admit that this day does have a certain kind of warmth to it.
For a bit of a history check, the origins of Valentine’s probably date back to the ancient Roman feast of Lupercalis (February 15). Though its history is shrouded in mystery, the festival gradually became associated with the feast day (February 14) of two martyrs, both named St Valentine, who lived in the 3rd century. Since then, the day has been traditionally regarded as a day of all lovers.
But if you want to know more about this festival, then visit the link http://wilstar.com/holidays/valentn.htm. Here it is explained how the present customs and traditions aren’t what they were meant to be centuries ago. The page emphasizes that the Valentine’s Day was originally a pagan celebration in which men used to pick their female partners for the coming year! It is only after the intervention of Pope Gelasius that this particular day started to take its present shape. Go ahead, read all about how the holiday customs of past and present differ rather remarkably.
But this is not what I was in search of. I was looking for love, of an online affection that I could pass to my sweetheart, and I found a bundle. One of them is at Happy Valentine’s Day http://www.theholidayspot.com/valentine/index.htm. Poems, cards, recipes, zodiac analysis, wallpapers and more at this site, including a link that will enable you to say “I Love You” in numerous world languages, including Urdu, Sindhi and Hindi.
Of course Valentine specific cards are designed with hearts to symbolize love. And my two most favoured sites for online cards for all occasions, American Greetings http://www.americangreetings.com/ and Blue Mountain http://www.bluemountain.com/, have ample Valentine’s cards for the occasion. From animated, Flash active to the regular normal Valentine Day e-greetings, the usual is there. But, as one card says it, “I’m expressing myself in writing — but I would rather do it orally”, these cards are only there as a last resort.
Speaking of orally, as any sane person would tell you, kissing is an important part of the day. And a pretty neat site for the purpose is virtualkiss.com. Thanks to this site, and to the Internet, you can send an e-kiss, create a unique e-kiss by choosing the lip shapes, colours, and patterns. Quizzes, games, astrology and even kiss prints are here. By far, a totally accomplished online kissing resource.
There’s also Cupid’s Cove http://www.usacitylink.com/cupid/ which features a cyber kissing booth, a screen saver, an “Ask Cupid” section, and other fun. Neat site, as there are romantic music and love recipes for you and for the apple of your eye.
But more than these two, a fun site is the Love Calculator http://www.lovecalculator.com/. Though it had me confused at first, I soon figured out that it means what it states in the address. It calculates the probability of a successful relationship between two people based on their names. And though it focuses mostly on non-Muslim names, it is still fun to see what comes out when you try and add Ali and Ayesha!
As I had promised earlier in the piece, this write-up also includes something for the not-so-loving people. Actually, these are the folks who take a more critical look at the whole Valentine Day proceedings. Like this guy who runs the Be My Anti-Valentine http://www.meish.org/vd/ site. And man, is this guy not-happy with Valentine’s Day, a sentiment he makes clear when he says “Valentine’s Day is like herpes: just when you think its gone for good, it rears its ugly head once more. No wonder some people prefer to call it VD”! There are even not-so-love filled cards here that you can share with your un-loving friends.
Another similar site is Bitter Sweet http://www.fray.com/criminal/vday/index.html for whose administrator Valentine’s Day is confusing as hell. But here the guy makes a more logical explanation when he says, “V-Day is one giant conspiracy designed to make us trot like lemmings to the mall, wallets drawn and ready. Forget about true passion — if you don’t drop a bundle on a dozen roses for your sweetie, you must not really love ‘em.” Now that’s a logic that I might be willing to buy. But for the moment, Valentine has the better of my heart and mind!
Other than love, for most of you out there, who aren’t into history Valentine’s Day is also associated with a gruesome crime event of the last century. The Valentine’s Day Massacre, as it is known, took place a the height of the gangster years of Chicago. The massacre is that time of history when gangsters, dressed as policemen, killed their rivals in cold blood. Details of this gruesome murder can be found at page, St Valentine’s Day Massacre http://www.prairieghosts.com/valentine.html. Here you can read about the most spectacular mob hit in gangland history.
AS most of you already know, Saint Valentine’s Day, a holiday honouring lovers. Celebrated throughout the world on February 14, the custom involves sending greeting cards, gifts or flowers to your dear and loved ones to express your affection for them. And though a number of you out there may not be the romantic kind, (we have a couple of sites for you guys as well), still you have got to admit that this day does have a certain kind of warmth to it.
