History of Valentine's Day

Late again, I know, but on purpose this time.  I held off from yesterday until today in honor of today's holiday. Although not my favorite, I find the history of the holiday to be interesting.  Did you know that there are in fact at least fourteen different Saint Valentines?  Or that the holiday is no longer a religious holiday in any way?  It's true!

The collective Saints Valentine were a number of Christian martyrs put to death in ancient Rome.  Whether the holiday was made to celebrate a certain one of the Valentines or if it was a collective holiday has never been determined, although it is certain that the holiday did not evolve until many years later.

Valentine's Day in its modern form, as a celebration of romantic love, originated in the Middle Ages, specifically in the works of Geoffrey Chaucer.  His poem "Parlement of Foules" presented  Valentine's Day as if it was a historical holiday, but no evidence exists to show that this is in fact the case.  There is a great deal of evidence to show that recognition was paid to Saint Valentine(s), with the actual saint's day established by Pope Gelasius I in 496 AD, but no association with love occurs before Chaucer.

For those of you who like to complain that Valentine's Day is a Hallmark holiday, meant only for the greeting card and chocolate companies, you can now support your argument further with the fact that it is no longer a religious holiday at all.  Pope Paul VI deleted it from the Roman calendar of saints in 1969.

For those of you who like this holiday, I would still encourage you to escape from Hallmark anyways-- traditional valentines were hand-made and often quite elaborate.  A great gallery of some can be found here.

Regardless of which side you're on, enjoy the day.  I'll definitely argue that more love in the world, even commercialized love, is never a bad thing.

Halloween and the Jack O'Lantern

Happy Halloween!

I'm spending my holiday in the library catching up on work I couldn't do yesterday when I was at a ballroom dance competition, so I hope your plans are more exciting than mine.

For Halloween today, I decided to write about something I've always been kind of curious about but never took the time to look up-- What the heck are jack o'lanterns for, anyways?

I love carving pumpkins and make sure to do it every year, but I've never really taken a step back to look at the tradition itself.  You have to admit, it's kind of an odd one.  After some Googling, I managed to find a website called the Pumpkin Nook, which brands itself as the "Internet Shrine and Library for Pumpkins".  Clearly, such a website was bound to explain jack o'lanterns to me.

According to the site, jack o'lanterns come from an Irish legend about a "miserable old drunk" known as Stingy Jack, who played a trick on the Devil by coaxing him into climbing a tree, then surrounding the trunk with crosses so the Devil couldn't get down.  Jack only let him down once the Devil promised not to take his soul when he died.  Unfortunately for Jack, this didn't work out quite as well as he wanted it to.  When he died, St. Peter refused to let him into heaven (perhaps because of the "miserable old drunk" part?) but the Devil kept his promise and refused to let him into hell.  This left Jack to wander the darkness between the two forever, lighting his way with an ember from hell that he carried in a hollowed out turnip (apparently something Jack kept with him regularly).

This legend turned into a tradition in Ireland, with people placing lights in hollowed out turnips and other vegetables outside their doors on Halloween to keep evil spirits away.  Once the Irish started moving to the United States, they discovered pumpkins (native to North America) and started using them for lanterns instead, as they're a lot easier to carve and hollow out than a turnip.

So now you know exactly what you're doing when you carve your next jack o'lantern!  I have to say, modern ones are definitely a lot cooler than a hollowed out turnip is likely to be.  Check out this link for a small glimpse of how awesome jack o'lanterns can be!

Things that Go Bump in the Night

Man, I really need to get better at remembering what day it is.  Just this week, I forgot to call my dad on his birthday-- not because I forgot his birthday but rather because I didn't realize it was already October 25th!  How did it get so far into fall already?

Maybe the weather here is throwing me off.  Everyone told me to have fun in the Frozen North when I left Virginia for Michigan, even my Connecticut friends who should be used to cold!  But so far it hasn't been too bad.