| By Gale Staff |
Americans love Valentine’s Day. According to the National Retail Federation, Americans spent more than $25 billion on the holiday in 2024. That’s a lot of chocolate! That same year, Target’s limited-edition Valentine’s Day–themed tumblers sparked retail chaos, reselling online for almost $250 each.
Beyond the flowers, cards, and candlelit dinners, Valentine’s Day has an intriguing history and global reach. With Gale In Context: High School, you can dig into Valentine’s Day traditions and discover how other cultures observe the holiday.
Gale In Context: High School presents information in a way that keeps students engaged and fosters their curiosity. Teachers can effortlessly integrate the database into the classroom, giving students autonomy over their research. With Gale, you have everything you need for an educational but nonetheless sweet Valentine’s Day lesson.
Of course, you may want to bring in some candy as well!
Meet the Real Saint Valentine
Before exploring contemporary holiday traditions, learn about the history of Valentine’s Day using the topic page in Gale In Context: High School.
Introduce your students to the real Saint Valentine. We know that he was born around 200 AD, and evidence suggests that Valentine secretly married couples. Roman Emperor Claudius II, who believed that single men made better soldiers, had instituted a marriage ban. Unfortunately, Valentine was caught and beheaded; his sacrifice would make him a martyr and a lasting symbol for young people in love.
In another story, Valentine was a physician and priest. As a Christian, he would pray to just one God, contrary to the Roman belief in a pantheon of deities and, thus, illegal. Valentine was eventually caught and imprisoned. While awaiting execution, he sent a farewell letter to one of his patients—the blind daughter of the jailor. Upon receiving his letter, the daughter’s sight was restored. He reportedly signed the message, “From your Valentine.”
In yet another version, Valentine’s Day has ties to an ancient Roman pagan festival called the Feast of Lupercalia. In ancient Rome, around mid-February, men would sacrifice goats and run through the streets, striking women (who voluntarily participated) with strips of goat hide. The practice was believed to boost fertility.
The tale was dramatized through time, traversing the works of great poets, including Geoffrey Chaucer, John Donne, and William Shakespeare. Chaucer once wrote, in his poem The Parliament of Fowls, that Saint Valentine’s Day is the time “whan every foul cometh ther to chese his make” (birds come to choose their mates). Playing off that same idea, Shakespeare writes in Act IV of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, “Saint Valentine is past. Begin these woodbirds but to couple now?” Whatever the truth behind Saint Valentine’s life, these famous writers solidified him as an eternal figure for love.
Discussion Idea: In 1853, The New York Times claimed that the true story behind Valentine’s Day was a mystery “doomed never to be solved.” There aren’t many concrete facts about Valentine’s Day origins, but the puzzle makes it all the more fascinating to research. Have students dig further into the holiday’s history. From patron saints to Roman feasts, which story do they think is the most likely?
Expand Your Research Beyond Our Borders
Now that the class has a general understanding of the holiday’s ancient roots, it’s time to take your Valentine’s Day research to a global scale. With Gale In Context: High School, students can research February 14 celebrations beyond the United States.
In Mexico and other Latin American countries, Valentine’s Day is called El Día del Amor y la Amistad, or The Day of Love and Friendship. Its customs blend Aztec rites of love with the Catholic St. Valentine’s feast traditions from the Spanish. The holiday is less focused on romance, and instead encourages family and friends to spend time together.
Participants might still purchase small gifts and heart-shaped goodies to exchange, but the practice isn’t exclusive to significant others. Streets are typically decorated with vibrant balloons and banners, and vendors sell Valentine’s treats like chocolate-covered strawberries, tamales with sweet fillings—and even a special pink mole!
In Germany, Valentine’s Day, or Valentinstag, grew popular in the mid-20th century. Despite being a relatively new holiday, the German people have already added their own unique twist. In lieu of traditional Valentine’s images like Cupid or roses, the Germans use a charming and sometimes seductively-posed pig. A symbol of luck and lust, pig-shaped candies and stuffed animals are often exchanged. Germans also exchange large heart-shaped gingerbread cookies adorned with ribbons.
In Japan, Valentine’s Day is all about the chocolate. The holiday gained popularity during the 1950s when the Morozoff confectionary company borrowed from Western tradition and developed a line of heart-shaped chocolates in a bid to increase its sales.
In an interesting twist, it’s typically the Japanese women who gift high-end chocolates to men, including male friends and colleagues. In what some say was a translation error, a European advertisement was misunderstood to suggest that gifting chocolate was exclusively from women to men. Today, consumers can buy all kinds of specialty chocolates for Valentine’s Day, though the best quality, the “Honmei Choco,” is reserved for true love.
Discussion Idea: As your students research different global traditions for Valentine’s Day, have them share what customs stand out to them. Are there any practices they might wish to adopt themselves? Perhaps instead of high-pressure dates or expensive gifts, students might simply share a delicious chocolate treat or go out to dinner with friends.
Valentine’s Day is about connection—whether through romantic, friendly, or family ties. These themes are essential to the human experience, and it only makes sense that the holiday would transcend far beyond its chocolate-covered customs in the U.S.
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