February 14th is Valentine’s Day. Here in the United States, Valentine’s Day is a $14.7 billion industry. Here are a few fun facts about the holiday…
GIFTS:
- Women purchase approximately 85% of all Valentines Day gifts
- Based on retail statistics, about 3% of pet owners will give Valentine’s Day gifts to their pets.
CARDS:
- About 1 billion Valentine’s Day cards are exchanged each year, making Valentine’s Day the second largest seasonal card sending time of the year
- Teachers will receive the most Valentine’s Day cards, followed by children, mothers, wives, sweethearts and pets. Children between the ages of 6-10 exchange more than 650 million Valentine cards a year.
- Americans spend around $277 million on Valentine cards every year, second only to Christmas.
- Each year 300,000 letters go through Loveland, Colorado, to get a special heart stamp cancellation for Valentine’s Day.
BEING SINGLE:
- If you’re single don’t despair. You can celebrate Singles Awareness Day (SAD) instead.
- Or you could pop over to Finland where Valentine’s Day is called Ystävänpäivä, which translates into “Friend’s day”. It’s a holiday set aside more for remembering your buddies than your loved ones.
CHOCOLATE:
- Physicians of the 1800’s commonly advised their patients to eat chocolate to calm their pining for lost love.
- Richard Cadbury produced the first box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day in the late 1800’s.
- More than 35 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolate will be sold for Valentine’s Day.
- Over $1 billion worth of chocolate is purchased for Valentine’s Day just here in the United States.
FLOWERS:
- On Valentine’s Day, nearly 189 million stems of roses are sold in the U.S.
- 73% of people who buy flowers for Valentine’s Day are men, while only 27% are women. However, 15% of U.S. women send themselves flowers on Valentine’s Day.
- 189 million stems of roses are sold in the United States on Valentine’s Day.
CANDY:
- Nearly 10 new candy “conversation heart” sayings are introduced each year. Recent additions have included “Yeah Right,” “Puppy Love,” and “Call Home.”
- Oh, by the way, those Valentine candy “conversation hearts” have a shelf life of five years.
PROPOSALS:
- 220,000 is the average number of wedding proposals on Valentine’s Day each year.
OTHER HISTORY:
- In the Middle Ages, young men and women drew names from a bowl to see who would be their Valentine. They would wear this name pinned onto their sleeves for one week for everyone to see. That was the origin of the expression “to wear your heart on your sleeve.”
- Groundhog Day was originally observed on February 14.
