Valentine's Day
/Valentine’s Day has changed over the past millennia or so. From a martyred saint, to a feast day, to courtly love and gifting roses and chocolates, where did our current Valentine’s Day traditions come from? Hint: British postal reforms are more important than you’d think!
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of death, religious persecution, torture, beheading, violence, execution, feces, and sex.
Housekeeping
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- Co-Hosts: Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin
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About Us
Spirits is a boozy podcast about mythology, legends, and folklore. Every episode, co-hosts Julia and Amanda mix a drink and discuss a new story or character from a wide range of places, eras, and cultures. Learn brand-new stories and enjoy retellings of your favorite myths, served over ice every week, on Spirits.
Transcript
Amanda: Hey, conspirators, it's me, Amanda, with a quick update for you. Come see us live in Portland, Oregon on March 23 2025 Spirits will be doing a live show with Join The Party, Julia and I will be in both halves of this live show, and you get two live shows for the price of one. We are incredibly excited, and we want to see you there. Come on over to spiritspodcast.com/live to check it out and get your tickets now that's March 23 Portland, Oregon. spiritspodcast.com/live we want to see you there. And by the way, if you're a conspirator who lives in New York City or surrounding areas, we are also going to be having a free cocktail pop up on February 20, which is all about the end of our current campaign on join the party. Julia and I will be there. Eric will be there. It'll be fabulous. And a listener of Join The Party is theming incredible craft cocktails all around the Join The Party plot. But I'm mentioning it here because, number one, if you want to come hang out with me and Julia, great place to do it. Two, totally free, just RSVP at the link in the description. And third, I think if you listen to the show you want to have a craft cocktail or mocktail, we have NA options as well, so come on through and see us one more time. Portland, March 23 New York City. February 20 links in the description, we hope to see you there.
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Amanda: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends and folklore. Every week we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda-
Julia: And I'm Julia and Amanda, I want you to think about our holidays here in the United States.
Amanda: Okay.
Julia: Sometimes I think about our holidays and I say, why? Where'd that come from?
Amanda: Okay, great.
Julia: And in particular, when this episode is coming out, I'm thinking about a particular holiday, and that is, of course, Valentine's Day.
Amanda: Yes, that's why, when I walk into CVS, I just see a wall of plastic, and within the plastic are some chocolates, and sometimes within the plastic or teddy bears, and other times it's like, very small balloons, but not balloons that float, just balloons on a stick.
Julia: Yeah, I never got the balloons as a Valentine's Day gift, like, I'm good, I don't need a balloon, you know, I just don't.
Amanda: I mean, for my birthday or something, I'll take, you know, some balloons, like, in a place where I'm gonna be and I don't expect them to be there, then they're there. But if someone handed me a balloon, I'd be like, What do I do with this?
Julia: And it feels like such a odd holiday that, for the most part, pretty much everyone celebrates in the United States.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: Particularly, it felt like such a weird holiday in terms of its origins, what I knew about it, and I wanted to kind of do a deeper dive into what Valentine's Day really is and why we for the most part, kind of all celebrate it here.
Amanda: Hell yeah, let's do it.
Julia: So for folks who, I guess maybe don't celebrate Valentine's Day, or, like, just like, think of it as, like, the little love holiday, I wanted to give a little bit more of a definition for what it actually is, which is Valentine's Day actually started as a Christian feast day and is still technically a Christian feast day. Specifically, it is a Catholic feast day for St Valentine.
Amanda: Julia. You saying that doesn't surprise me, but it does surprise me. I think it has just been so commercialized into you know, your wife or girlfriend or female partner is going to judge you for how much you do or do not do on this day in society that it has been completely divorced of its actual theological origins for me.
Julia: Yes, and we're going to talk about those theological origins quite a bit, because I'm gonna ask the questions like, What does St Valentine have to do with romance and love? Who was Saint Valentine? How did he get associated with like, little angels and hearts and stuff like that.
Amanda: Oh, the baby cherubs. We gotta know.
Julia: And how did this holiday go from an obscure Christian feast day to a commercialized secular holiday?
Amanda: Hell, yeah, dude, let's go.
Julia: So St Valentine was a saint. However, much like anything, it is never as simple as that here on Spirits Podcast, because there was actually three St Valentines, or apparently, Amanda, much like surgeons general, it's Saints Valentine.
Amanda: No way that sounds like the name of an English man, that someone older than me when I was in high school was like, that's really just a name. And I'm like, No, it's not. Why is it Saint John? And why do you pronounce it Sin Jin? Like, what? Yeah,
Julia: Yeah. That was my least favorite part of that giant book.
Amanda: I know
Julia: I was like, Why do you make me say it like that? It's very clearly spelled this way.
Amanda: Why is Mr. Elias so invested in me saying Sin Jin,
Julia: I don't like it. Stop it. Mr. Elias, anyway, Saints Valentine, all three Saints Valentine have a connection to the date of February 14th, which is Valentine's Day.
Amanda: Oh!
Julia: Now, one was St Valentine of Rome, who was a Roman priest. Another was St Valentine of Terni, who was a bishop of Central Italy. And the last one we actually know very little about, he's just kind of he's Saint Valentine. He was said to have been murdered on February 14th on the coast of North Africa, and otherwise, we don't have any surviving information about him.
Amanda: Except that this, this was the date of his martyrdom, and therefore might have been chosen as the feast day
Julia: Exactly, exactly.
Amanda: Wow.
Julia: But the first two Saints Valentine were both part of the Roman Empire. They ministered to Christians before Christianity was the mainstream religion of the Roman Empire, and when it was illegal to minister to Christians because Christians were a persecuted group.
Amanda: Sure. So you know, you're you're doing ministry under persecution. Sounds like the kind of saintly behavior that would kind of get you noticed.
Julia: Exactly. And Amanda, that actually brings me to my next point, which is I realize that not everyone knows how someone becomes a saint.
Amanda: Let's get into it.
Julia: Yes. Now becoming a saint is called canonization, and there are certain qualifications that one must meet in order to be declared a saint. Those qualifications have changed more in modern times and are in some ways quite complicated, and there's a lot of politics involved in naming someone a saint in the modern day, but early Saints were largely declared saints by word of their piety spreading to the people, not through a particularly formal procedure as it is nowadays.
Amanda: Oh, interesting. So it's like we kind of all agree over time that, like this person is legendary enough and known enough that they sort of get it as almost like a marker of respect or status, not in a formal way, but it like gathers like a snowball.
Julia: Yes, exactly. Now there are some like general things that, for the most part, made one a saint in that sort of spreading of the people, the Vox Populi, if you will, of the Sanctum one was being martyred for their faith. Big deal. And many have evidence of performing at least one miracle.
Amanda: Makes sense.
Julia: Nowadays. You need two miracles. At least two miracles.
Amanda: Independent miracles that are witnessed by others.
Julia: Yes, correct.
Amanda: Damn.
Julia: So in talking about St Valentine, or saints Valentine, we've got a couple of things we have to cover, which is, how did he minister to Christians? Did he perform a miracle? And was he murdered? So according to the written history of Saint Valentine, he was a priest as well as a physician during the rule of the Roman Emperor Claudius, The Second Gothicus.
Amanda: Oh
Julia: Cool name.
Amanda: Good name.
Julia: So whether he lived in Rome itself or was a priest in Terni is kind of somewhat up for debate. It is thought that perhaps the two saints Valentine were, in fact, the same person with just different records in regards to his life.
Amanda: Sure.
Julia: It was said that while he was in Rome, either living and preaching there, or while visiting from Terni, he was imprisoned and placed under house arrest for ministering to Christians, which, as we just discussed at the time, was a crime that was punishable by death.
Amanda: Oh, wow.
Julia: So at this point during his house arrest, he was interviewed by a judge named Judge Asterius, who was questioning him about his faith, basically trying to be like, are you legit? Do you want to just say that you're you're not Christian? Because you can get out of it if you just say you're not Christian.
Amanda: Right.
Julia: So in particular, he was asking about Jesus, and Jesus's reported ability to heal the sick, right? So to test this, he brought Saint Valentine, his daughter, Julia, who was blind now, Asterius told Saint Valentine that if he could restore the girl's sight, he would grant him any request.
Amanda: I mean, that seems like a pretty fair quid pro quo if you're gonna be working in law enforcement in the Roman Empire. And you know, trade favors for like, exceptions to the law.
Julia: Yes. I mean, listen, it's corruption, it's the Roman Empire. We're not like, Ah, yes, that is the moral and right thing to do. So Valentine laid his hands on Julia, restoring her vision, and immediately humbling Asterius.
Amanda: Yeah, Asterius didn't expect that to happen, I bet.
Julia: He did not. I think he was like, give it a shot, but we'll see what happens.
Amanda: Right.
Julia: So he asks Valentine what he wanted from him, and the priest tells him to destroy all the idols in his home. Because keep in mind, these are the Roman gods at this point, to fast for three days and then to be baptized.
Amanda: Pretty big ask. But also, you know, you I think I just saw a miracle.
Julia: So Asterius does all of this also frees all of the Christians that he has the authority to free as a judge.
Amanda: Okay.
Julia: And not only did he become baptized, but all of his family members and members of his household also became Christian.
Amanda: I see why that would raise you up in the lore. That is definitely like not only a have you been persecuted by the Romans for, you know, for doing your faith thing, but also you brought one of them around to us and like him and all his, you know, family are like on the train.
Julia: He and 44 other people.
Amanda: Damn, that's amazing. And
Julia: And of course, Valentine was set free, kind of unsurprisingly, St Valentine continued to preach and was arrested again for doing so did not learn his lesson from the first time.
Amanda: He's like, "I know exactly what to do. Does one of you have a kid?"
Julia: So this time, he was sent to Emperor Claudius himself. And to be fair, Emperor Claudius liked Valentine quite a bit when he first met him. He kept him around. He's like, You seem cool. I like your whole vibe. Like, you know, for a Christian, you seem pretty, pretty like, sweet, I guess. And like, I'll give you the opportunity again. Like, you know, if you just say you're not a Christian, I'll, I will set you free. Valentine instead, starts to try to convert Claudius.
Amanda: Sure.
Julia: At which point he's like, Well, okay, you're doing the thing you arrested for to me, so either last chance renounce your faith or you'll be beaten with clubs and beheaded.
Amanda: Yikes.
Julia: This is also for folks who are not familiar with saints and Catholicism. This is a pretty common theme in the martyrdom of saints. It's almost always like a choice of renounce your faith or die, and they almost always pick the die option,
Amanda: Yeah, I mean, it's, it's an extremely courageous choice, you know, like, I see exactly why that is the like, that is as much as you could sacrifice for something that feels higher than yourself.
Julia: Yeah, and that's why they're saints, that's why they're martyred, that's why we're talking about them today, right? This is where we start getting the makings of our modern holiday. Because it was said that while in prison, before his execution, St Valentine was in contact with Asterius' daughter, Julia, the one who he had healed.
Amanda: I see.
Julia: Writing letters back and forth.
Amanda: Oh, that there was a little, like, a little spark.
Julia: No, because again, like a lot of the saints were very pious men, and usually were like, I'm going to do the abstinence-only thing.
Amanda: Right.
Julia: But in his final letter before being executed, he supposedly signed the note quote from your Valentine.
Amanda: This makes all of the cards that our teachers made all the boy children write to all the girl children extremely fucking creepy from your death row savior, martyr?
Julia: Valentine was martyred on February 14th 269 CE, which became his feast day.
Amanda: Oh, boy! Julia, what are we gonna do for the double Millennium celebration of his feast day of his martyrdom?
Julia: Oh, no. Oh, no.
Amanda: We won’t be around for it but we have to start training and planting some seeds.
Julia: So this is the historical information that we have on St Valentine. There are quite a few legends that have spread about the saint, which also lends itself to the Valentine's Day that we know here in modernity. So those are like the facts we know about Saint Valentine.
Amanda: Okay.
Julia: These are more of the like we heard, we did this kind of stuff, right?
Amanda: Let's go.
Julia: So for example, Valentine was said to have performed Christian weddings, which, of course, were illegal, and also helped the new husbands in these in these wedding ceremonies, many of whom were threatened to be conscripted into the Roman army escape their military service.
Amanda: Cool.
Julia: Also kind of pissed off the Emperor even more, because this was during a time where the army was lacking soldiers, and so he also, according to some myths, wore a purple amethyst ring. Now this is important, Amanda, which had the image of Cupid engraved in it.
Amanda: Interesting.
Julia: Now, Cupid being a Roman god and the legal symbol of love under the Roman Empire.
Amanda: Now, why would a deeply committed Christian wear a ring of a Roman god?
Julia: Well, this allowed Roman soldiers who were secretly Christian to recognize the ring, being like, this is a someone who is associated with love, and then they would be able to ask him to perform marriages for them.
Amanda: I see.
Julia: So they were like, I know what you do. I see your ring. Can I get married? And he's like, yes, of course.
Amanda: Are you a friend of Cupid?
Julia: I love this kind of idea of like, the Cupid aspect is because this guy was like, low-key being like, yeah, Roman love, that's what you want.
Amanda: I love marriage is administered by Cupid and Cupid only.
Julia: Me too.
Amanda: Jesus has nothing to do with it. Nope, he's not invited. Wink!
Julia: In this story, Valentine then started a tradition, which, in order to remind these men of their marriage vows and also God's love, he would cut out hearts out of paper and pass them out to the men.
Amanda: Okay.
Julia: This, I think, might be a little bit more apocryphal, and we'll talk about why that is a little bit later, but basically it was like these reminders of these paper hearts being passed around. But we're kind of starting to see the shape of these Valentine's Day celebrations coming out of St Valentine's reported legends.
Amanda: Got it.
Julia: By the time his feast day began being celebrated in earnest by Christians. He was seen as the patron of engaged couples, happy marriages, and love.
Amanda: Well, that makes a lot more sense that I initially thought when we said, this is a saint's, you know, martyrdom and feast day.
Julia: Exactly. St Valentine's feast day remained a pretty average feast day compared to other ones until the Middle Ages when we started to see the celebrations change towards what we kind of know them to be now. So around the 14th and 15th centuries, a time where courtly love became an important aspect of the culture, especially among the rich and the Royal so-
Amanda: I see.
Julia: We're starting to again see the the shape of things. If you know anything about courtly love, it's kind of like the Arthurian knights, you know, giving tokens to ladies and then being like, I'm going to be chivalrous and win this battle for you sort of thing. It's a type of love that is, like, focused on nobility and chivalry. There's an art to it, there's rules, there's expected actions, etc, etc.
Amanda: Totally.
Julia: Now it is around this time that we get the first recorded association with romantic love and Valentine's Day in particular. And that is from Geoffrey Chaucer in his 1382 Parliament of Fowls.
Amanda: I didn't know that was a thing he wrote.
Julia: It is
Amanda: I just know him for his tales.
Julia: Yes, yes, no. This is, this is a fun little aside, one where he writes about birds.
Amanda: Incredible parliament of birds. Let's go.
Julia: This is also kind of a little bit more additional important context as well. Around this time, it was believed that birds would pair up in February, kind of like for the season.
Amanda: Okay.
Julia: That's actually where we get the term love birds from.
Amanda: I was just gonna say, I'm like, why are we talking about turtle doves? Why are we talking about them at Christmas? Why are we talking about doves? Are we talking about love birds like, I guess because they sing. It was sort of my vague assumption. But, I mean, yeah, if they're pairing up around the time of the romantic love feast day, then you're gonna a symbol is gonna assemble
Julia: Exactly, exactly. So here is what Chaucer wrote. I'm gonna read it in the modern English, not the Middle English, just to save our all of us the headache from that.
Amanda: Thank you.
Julia: For this was on St Valentine's Day when every bird comes there to choose his match of every kind that men may think of, and that so huge a noise they began to make that earth and air and tree and every lake was so full that, not easily, there was space for me to stand. So full was all the place.
Amanda: Oh, wow.
Julia: He's like, it's just so crowded with birds and they're all fucking.
Amanda: My first thought is, this seems like there's gonna be a lot of poop there eventually, but-
Julia: It'd be stinky.
Amanda: You know? Hooray. It's really ringing with the sounds of love.
Julia: Exactly, exactly ringing in with the sounds of love, which is birds having sex.
Amanda: Don't know what that sounds like. Don't want to.
Julia: Nope.
Amanda: Because I feel like then I would hear it a lot.
Julia: So after Chaucer, the sort of next correlation of love and Valentine's Day celebrations was written about in 1400 in France, it views St Valentine's Day as a celebration of love, as depicted in the quote charter of the court of love. So this is a writing that describes a lavish affair with members of the French royal court. There would be feasting, love, songs, poetry, competitions, jousting, which, in my mind, is the most romantic of all events. And of course, dancing.
Amanda: And Julia is jousting romantic because it ends with somebody being sort of skewered and flayed or is it because it's quite a sort of phallic exercise?
Julia: I think it's because I watched too much of a Knight's Tale when I was very formative and my sexuality was forming.
Amanda: Sure.
Julia: Yeah. Yeah.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: I also think that jousting should become more of a part of current Valentine's Day festivities. Hot take.
Amanda: I mean, you could do, yeah, like a winter renaissance fair session and just be like, bring your sweetie, and here we are.
Julia: So another part of these festivities was that the ladies of the court would sort of create, I would say, a tribunal of sorts, where lovers who were having issues would come before them, they would hear them out, and then they would decide the best course of action for them.
Amanda: Okay, Julia, sign me the fuck up for that. I will, I will, like sleep on the convention floor. I will sleep in the Walmart to get the first PS5 at the Door Buster prize. Like there is nothing I've ever wanted more than this thing I just learned exists, than to be on a tribunal being like, let me give you my opinion as to what you should do to fix this shit.
Julia: Yeah, I like this one too. I think this should also be a part of modern Valentine's Day celebrations.
Amanda: Great, incredible. Bring it back.
Julia: So I like this as a idea of like, Valentine's Day stuff, with the caveat that this is the only source that we have for these types of celebrations. So it is very possible that it wasn't a super widespread thing or anything, and or there's theories that this might have just been fictional. The writer of this wanted to, like, come up with some fictionalized celebrations of St Valentine's Day around a time where everyone was kind of trapped inside because the plague was happening.
Amanda: Well, that's certainly not relatable at all. And I too would invent excuses and fantasy to judge other people's relationships. That sounds like a ton of fun.
Julia: That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. Still, I like this record, even if it might not be super accurate. I think it's really cool. Now we are quite yet at the point where Valentine's Day celebrations are what we see today, but how we get there, Amanda, I think we will discuss as soon as we go grab our refill.
Amanda: Let's do it.
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Amanda: Hey everybody, it's Amanda, and welcome to the refill, where I would like to pour an especially tall cold drink, seltzer or something else in it. Diane Johnson, our newest patron. Thank you so much, Diane for joining us and helping support the show with your hard earned human dollars every single week. If you out there, would like to help support spirits. Would like to have your name read in the midroll. Would like to have recipe cards for every dang episode. Behind the Scenes directors commentary that Julia and I put together all about what we enjoyed and missed in the episode. You gotta join us, y'all patreon.com/spiritspodcast. Thanks as well to our supporting producer. Level patrons, Uhleeseeuh, Anne, Hannah, Jane, Lily, Matthew, Rikoelike, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Scott, Wil and AE (Ah), as well as our legend-level patrons, Audra, Bex, Chibi Yokai, Michael, Morgan H., Sarah, and Bea Me Up Scotty.
Amanda: Folks. It is. It is bleak out there. And first of all, I want to say, if you're a federal worker impacted in the US by all this bullshit, know that we love you. We see you. We're so sorry, and that all of our friends and relatives who are in the District of Columbia are in the streets protesting right now, and if you can be, I highly suggest you do. If you don't know where to start or how to do that, feel free to reach out to me personally, DM me on social, or email me. My email is on the Multitude website, and I will help set you up with people on the ground who can help you safely coordinate to protest. If you would also like to spend some time zoning out to very good competition reality TV shows. I highly recommend Deal or No Deal Island, or, as us true fans say, DONDI, that's right, that's the initialism for Deal or No Deal island. It is, in fact, a game of Deal or No Deal, which you may remember from the early 2000s set on an island. But it's also so much more. I am a connoisseur of reality TV, as you know, and I gotta tell you, this show has the juice. It is so good. It's hosted by Joe Manganiello. It has some reality TV phase like Parvati from survivor as well as David from Australian survivor, my other favorite reality show. And it's just so good, it's so pleasant. Season 2 is airing right now in the US. I highly recommend that if you're into reality competition shows, if you're into like Traders, The Challenge, Survivor, stuff along those lines, you're gonna love DONDI. So go on, check it out, and then tag me with your opinions. I'd love to see them.
Amanda: If you are looking for a way to support Spirits this week, or just to brighten your friend's day. Hey, why don't you send them one of the clips we've been posting. Brandon has been working so hard to make incredibly funny and poignant and beautiful reels, short videos, things that we can post on Tiktok, YouTube, Spotify. So if you want to go ahead and say to a friend, this show is great. I even listen to their mid-roll ads. You're a true head, and I need you to send a friend one of our videos today. We are @spiritspodcast on all the socials, except for Tiktok, where we have one Tiktok for all Multitude. At @multitudeshows. Alright, send it to them. Send them some laughing crying emojis or some pensive heart emojis, and see what happens.
Amanda: Tons going on here at Multitude. More to come. I gotta tell you this Spring. But in the meantime, if you have run out of spirits, episodes to enjoy, I highly recommend you go ahead and check out Big Game Hunger, a weekly comedy podcast where Jenna Stoeber and friends craft the next big video game every episode. They use a random number generator to come up with a genre, concept and vibe, and then Jenna and her funny and game-obsessed guests take those ideas all the way to their logical conclusion, which, in the case of video games, is a AAA video game franchise. It is incredibly fun. You can be guaranteed to learn a bit about the video game industry, but mostly laugh a lot every single Monday. So go on over to Big Game Hunger in your podcast app, or go to biggamehunger.com.
Amanda: We are sponsored this week by Tempo, a weekly meal delivery service that delivers chef-crafted meals from a dietitian, improved menu fresh to your door. They serve up fast, single-serving meals that are crafted to cook in just three minutes so you can eat well without sacrificing taste or convenience. If you are somebody who, like me, maybe finishes your work for the day and you come home or shift from your one room of your home to your kitchen and think, Oh, my God, this is the last thing I want to do right now. I highly recommend you check out a meal box if that is within your means. Tempo has new recipes each week that are made with real ingredients and are nutrient-rich. They have portioned lunches and dinners, so you can take all the guesswork out of like, what's going into this? How does this fit into my day? I can heat it in the microwave in just three minutes, and depending on what you're looking for in your food, you can also select from their different kinds of meals, like protein, packed fiber, rich and more. For a limited time Tempo is offering spirits listeners 60% off your first box. Go to tempomeals.com/spirits, that's tempomeals.com/spirits, for 60% off your first box. tempomeals.com/spirits.
Ashley Flowers: Some mysteries can be solved by looking at the facts, but in some cases, answers lie in the unknown. I'm Ashley Flowers, and each week on my podcast So Supernatural, we explore some of the world's most bizarre occurrences and unravel their possible explanations, no matter how strange. Because sometimes to get to the truth, you have to look beyond what we know to be reality. Listen to So Supernatural now wherever you get your podcasts.
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Amanda: And now back to the show.
Julia: Amanda, we are back and for this cocktail for Valentine's Day. I think I wanted to do something that is not particularly sweet. I was thinking like, maybe we're gonna do a play on, like, a chocolate, strawberry, sort of, you know, dessert cocktail, something like that. But I said, No, instead, we're gonna do a cocktail that's called the Love and Murder. Because, hey, that's what happened to St Valentine.
Amanda: Exactly.
Julia: He got murdered.
Amanda: Loved Jesus got murdered, and now we love him and feast.
Julia: And he loved love, you know?
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: So this is a cocktail that actually combines two of my favorite types of liquor, which is Campari and Green Chartreuse.
Amanda: Yay. That's a Julia drink, if I ever saw one.
Julia: Polarizing flavors, I understand, but kind of delicious. Honestly, it's Campari, it's green Chartreuse, it's all equal parts. There's also lime juice in there, same equal part, and then a little simple syrup, and also a little bit of a saline solution. So you're balancing out that sweet and also a little salty, savory. And then, like lots of complex flavors from the Campari and the chartreuse.
Amanda: And either you love it or you throw it out the window. Don't break your Glassware. Use a shatterproof cup. But I think that would be fun.
Julia: Like love. Just like love.
Amanda: Exactly.
Julia: You either hold on to or you throw out the window. Alright, Amanda, with our Love and Murders in hand, we have established that Saint Valentine and romance and love have kind of been connected at this point. But when did our traditions like sending Valentine's hearts and all of that? When did that happen? The first and earliest Valentine was actually a poem written in the 15th century by the Duke of Orleans for his wife.
Amanda: Oh!
Julia: It's in French. Not gonna try to read the French for you. But the opening of the poem translates to quote, "I am already tired of love, my very sweet Valentine."
Amanda: Where does it go from there?
Julia: He was like, Yeah, you know, I don't want to, like, gut into this too much. But he was like, I think that my love for you is I don't want to explore other options.
Amanda: Oh, like, this is enough for me. Like, let's let's retire, okay? Okay.
Julia: Exactly. The first Valentine, written English is from Marjorie Bruce, written in 1477 where she refers to her future husband as quote, "My right well beloved Valentine."
Amanda: Interesting, and I guess it means like my spouse or my intended.
Julia: Yes, exactly like, oh, my true, my love, I already love you so much already. And you remind me of Saint Valentine.
Amanda: Yeah, one Christian love, under God.
Julia: My one love under God indivisible–
Amanda: Right? No sex until marriage. Goodbye.
Julia: Shakespeare even makes references to St Valentine's Day in Hamlet, with Ophelia saying, "Tomorrow is Saint Valentine's day, All in the morning betime, And I a maid at your window, To be your Valentine."
Amanda: I don't think I remembered that that play is set on February 12 to 14th. But wow, that adds a whole other layer.
Julia: Yes, I know, right? You're like, Oh, wow. Now I get it.
Amanda: No wonder he's so depressed. Same!
Julia: Exactly. Ever since we did our episode on Shakespeare.
Amanda: Yeah?
Julia: I've been thinking so much more about, like, I wonder how much the context of Shakespeare plays changes when we think about what time of year it takes place in. And Hamlet. I think that kind of changed my opinion about it now that I'm like, oh, this is right around Valentine's Day. That's weird.
Amanda: Well, folks, that's of interest to you. Let us know.
Julia: Now, Amanda, one of the classic Valentines we grew up with is, Roses are red, right?
Amanda: They sure are, Julia and violets I hear, are blue.
Julia: Yes, the classic version that I grew up with was, Roses are red, violets are blue. Sugar is sweet, and so are you.
Amanda: Yep.
Julia: But there are lots of variations on that, right?
Amanda: Oh, definitely. I mean, there are, there are Valentines with Spidermen on them, and Power Rangers on them, and other things that we grew up with.
Julia: Exactly, exactly. Now, did you know Amanda that the roses are red? Variation actually goes back to Edmund Spencer's The Fairy Queen from 1590.
Amanda: No, I read that poem in school. Well,
Julia: It goes, "She bath'd with roses red, and violets blue, And all the sweetest flowres, that in the forrest grew."
Amanda: Cool. It's a very long poem. I don't remember the whole thing, but damn, that's amazing.
Julia: Yeah, I just, I can't get over how old it is.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: Like we've been mimicking this one Valentine poem for 435 years.
Amanda: And I love that someone was like, "Oh, what do I say? What do I say? Oh, no, that's right!" And then, like, remembers a vaguely sweet, but, like, not romantic. It's not addressed to anybody in the original poem. You're just replacing that in the forest grew with, like, and so are you.
Julia: And you too! Amanda. It gets so much better too, because this kind of rhyme scheme was further solidified in a 1784 collection of English Nursery Rhymes by Joseph Johnson. And his version goes, "Roses are red Violets are blue, Sugar is sweet And so are you."
Amanda: Ey!
Julia: And then it continues because there's a second stanza for him, which is, "Thou are my love and I am thine; I drew thee to my Valentine: The lot was cast and then I drew, And Fortune said it shou'd be you."
Amanda: That's pretty cute.
Julia: It is really cute.
Amanda: That's effort. You gotta memorize that we're talking about, like fortune, we're talking about faded matches, and not just being like, excuse me, goodbye!
Julia: I just think it's really sweet. I also really like this idea that it does the it's not the original. But I do like that this version makes direct reference to Valentines, which I is, like, kind of important for what we're talking about here. So, but you also you can see why there are so many iterations of this in popular culture. It's an easy rhyme scheme. It's something that kids could easily personalize and make their own. And Amanda in saying, like, oh yeah, you know, like, this is something that, like, you know, we have the beginning of it. And then something, something Spider-Man swings in, you know, for us.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: There was a British version of this where, first off, we had a British publisher who, in 1797 printed The Young Man's Valentine Writer, which is basically an entire publication of romantic poems for young men who weren't good at writing poetry but still wants to write a nice little Valentine for their loved one.
Amanda: Incredible! What a cottage industry, man. I love it!
Julia: It's like no chat. GPT for these 1700 boys, they had The Young Man's Valentine Writer.
Amanda: And I think those two tools, slash populations, had equal negative impact on the world.
Julia: I would say, so. I would say so. Imagine you're just, you're a sweet young man from 1797 and you're like, "Huh! I just want to know that the girl,"- I don't know why I'm doing this accent for a British man, but, "Huh! I just want to know that the girl who I like likes me back, but I can't write in poetry."
Amanda: Right. The next step in courtship, which is an evolution of the you know, the courtly love that you described earlier, is to, you know, present her with flowers and then a poem and then like a token, and then to talk to her dad about the economic merging of our families.
Julia: Exactly.
Amanda: How else am I gonna progress?
Julia: What's her dowry looking like?
Amanda: Right!
Julia: So, around the same time that The Young Man's Valentine Writer was published, we also saw that printers were producing stock, but limited romantic cards with poems on them, which were referred to as Mechanical Valentines.
Amanda: Oh, was there like a paper tab and like moving parts in the card?
Julia: I don't particularly know. I think it was kind of like layered Valentines, where it was like, different types of card stock-
Amanda: Got it.
Julia: - or something like that. It didn't get wild until later. So-
Amanda: Okay.
Julia: This kind of took off, these Mechanical Valentines, and by the early 19th century, there were factories in England that were producing them in bulk, like exclusively just producing Valentines in bulk.
Amanda: That's amazing. I would be surprised if now there was a business that lasted all year round only printing Valentines.
Julia: Yeah, well, Hallmark kinda except for Christmas time. I don't know.
Amanda: They put a lot of effort into, like, inventing more occasions to buy Hallmark Cards, though.
Julia: Yes, and we'll talk about that in a little bit.
Amanda: Okay.
Julia: As these became kind of more widely spread. They're being produced in bulk. They also started getting even fancier. They were being made, not just of paper, but also being made of lace and of ribbon. And also in the mid-1800s we invented paper lace, which is kind of wild.
Amanda: Oh, yeah.
Julia: So that like became incredibly important, not just for like, decor purposes, but also for the Valentine industry.
Amanda: That's so interesting, it never occurred to me that, like the little paper doilies that you, you know, put a cup on in a restaurant are paper lace. But that is what it is, and it's, uh, infinitely easier and cheaper to buy than stitch really, you know, a real lace together. Oh, my God.
Julia: So, Amanda Valentine's became so popular in England that in the year 1835 60,000 Valentine cards were sent by post.
Amanda: Wow.
Julia: And this was a time Amanda where postage was very expensive in England. So you can see how in vogue it was to send Valentines.
Amanda: Damn.
Julia: In fact, Amanda, this is, this is a wild like English history thing that I never thought about until I was doing the research on this episode. But in 1840 there were giant postal reforms in England with the invention of the postage stamp.
Amanda: There you go.
Julia: It made it incredibly cheaper to send posts throughout the country of England, so much so that in 1841 on Valentine's Day in February of that year, 400,000 Valentines were mailed.
Amanda: Oh, my God, that is so much more than 60,000!
Julia: Exactly, exactly, and that was in the span of six years.
Amanda: Wow. I'm surprised there were that many people who could, like, read, write and afford a postage stamp. That's wild.
Julia: Also keep in mind, maybe these people were sending out multiple Valentines, like one person might be sending out like, oh, I'm courting several ladies. Let me send out multiple Valentines.
Amanda: That'd be the talk of the town.
Julia: However, Amanda these postal reforms also add in an additional twist, which is now you could mail things anonymously, which gave us the kind of secret admirer, Secret Valentine for the first time.
Amanda: I see how fascinating!
Julia: It also led to way sexier Valentines, because they could be sent anonymously. And so there was like, this kind of industry of creating the sexy Valentine because if we know anything about Victorians, they're all secretly very horny on the DL. So this allowed this kind of, like, new aspect of like, oh yes, the courtly Valentine, and then they like, I want to see your titties Valentine.
Amanda: There's a Valentine you put on the mantle and showed your mom, and there's a Valentine that you go that's going right under the mattress.
Julia: You said, Oh no, that's going in the floorboard.
Amanda: That's gonna be for me later.
Julia: It's gonna lock the drawer in my desk. So at this point, it didn't take very long for this English tradition to spread over to the United States, and the first mass-produced American Valentines were produced by a woman named Esther Howland. Now Esther Howland's father owned a stationery store, and this allowed her to import the fancy English paper lace and start selling her Valentines in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Amanda: You know, Julia, as much as Boston loves to say Tea Party, Tea Party, they also love to use English trends, and so that makes a lot of sense.
Julia: So Esther started her sales in 1847 and by 1849 Valentine's Day was really starting to get some traction in the United States. In a monthly magazine in 1849 a writer wrote, quote, "St. Valentine's Day is becoming, nay, it has become, a national Holy Day". Which, it just hit me during the research for this Amanda, that we get the word holiday from Holy Day, and I feel like a dummy for not thinking about that
Amanda: Sooner. You know, I don't think I put those two things together either. And instead, Julia, I want to say to you, congratulations on realizing a new fun fact.
Julia: Thank you. I was like, oh, oh, oh! That was kind of my thought process at the time.
Amanda: Words, really do that.
Julia: Yeah, they really just do that, huh?
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: I don't know. So, you know, and we made this joke earlier. We tend to joke about, like, ah, Valentine's Day. It's just a holiday because of Hallmark. And it's like, you know, Hallmarks are trying to find a way to sell us more stuff. It was definitely more popular in the United States before Hallmark was even a glimmer in capitalism's eye.
Amanda: Alright, you know, Hallmark was following the trend, not making it.
Julia: Exactly, exactly. And this is the part of the episode that I call the Hey, that Valentine's Day tradition. Where'd it come from?
Amanda: Okay, great.
Julia: The answer is. The answer is capitalism.
Amanda: Oh, okay, alright, let's do it.
Julia: So here's the thing, Amanda, Heart Shaped Box of Chocolates.
Amanda: Iconic, iconic, iconic.
Julia: Invented by Cadbury.
Amanda: Oh, the people with the eggs, with the little with little juice inside!
Julia: The cream eggs.
Amanda: Yeah!
Julia: With juice inside. Oh no!
Amanda: Well... tell me I'm wrong!
Julia: Not wrong. But also, oh no!
Amanda: There's the ones with the sauce, and then there's the ones with the forbidden candies. And those two are two different kinds of eggs
Julia: Kinder Egg versus Cadbury egg. Yes. Okay, so in 1868 Cadbury introduced what they called fancy boxes.
Amanda: Oh! [fancy giggle]
Julia: And this was just, it was very quickly, like it just a heart-shaped box of chocolates, very quickly became associated with Valentine's Day.
Amanda: Yeah. Yeah.
Julia: And it was really around this time and the later half of the 20th century that we weren't just exchanging cards, but we were starting to exchange gifts like jewelry and your teddy bears and your little balloons that you never use outside of Valentine's Day, right?
Amanda: I'm picturing a Don Draper, but in, you know, late 1800s dress pointing to an easel and being like, we have to teach them that they must buy diamonds, you know, like, we have to explain to them why this is the thing they have to do.
Julia: Well, Amanda, this was, at this point, we're fast forwarding about 100 years, and now it's the post World War 2 economic boom, and they're like, not enough people are buying diamonds.
Amanda: Yeah, take off your your Victorian tux, Don Draper, it's 1950. Exactly.
Julia: Exactly. So kind of this aspect is all like capitalism strikes again. Can't blame Hallmark Cadbury kind of had their own hand in this one as well.
Amanda: Sure.
Julia: Now, Amanda, you had also specifically asked me about hearts
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: And how they became associated with love, and also why they look like that on Valentine's Day. So
Amanda: Of course, I know that we didn't always know that the anatomical heart in the body is just kind of like a slightly misshapen potato. Love her. She keeps me going. Thank you. But that's not what the heart looks like, and so I'm just super curious where the symbol comes from, if it's supposed to be like two things joining or or what? Because it was referenced, like you said, as far back as the original Saint Valentine, cutting the shape out of paper.
Julia: So I think that woman's a little apocryphal, but we kind of have the Greeks to blame, at least in Europe, as to why the heart is associated with love. Sappho, for example, wrote about her mad heart that quaked with love. Quote, "Love shook my heart like the wind on the mountain troubling the oak trees."
Amanda: Beautiful.
Julia: Beautiful. She's so beautiful. Aristotle and Plato also both thought that the chest and the heart were in charge of all of our emotions with Aristotle saying that the heart itself was in charge of all of the human processes.
Amanda: Oh, the brain's in the chest. Okay.
Julia: They didn't know about the brains. They were like, the weird thing on our heads, yeah, the thing in the heart, the thing that hurts when you feel feelings that one.
Amanda: Yeah. I mean, which makes sense, right? Like, your, you know, your pulse speeds up, it slows down. Your chest is thumping or tingly, like, of course, that makes all the sense in the world to me. But the specific, like symbol that looks like, you know, two teardrops, uh, coming together that, I don't know.
Julia: The first use of that symbol might have been from the Romans. So this is in a city called Serene, which was Roman at the time but is now in modern-day Libya. We have records of a coin that shows what we think of as the heart shape.
Amanda: Ooh! Right.
Julia: But it was, in fact, the seed of a now extinct species of fennel.
Amanda: Oh!
Julia: Now this was, at the time, used for its contraceptive properties.
Amanda: Got it.
Julia: It was the city's biggest export, and as such, it was commemorated on their coins. =
Amanda: Right on. Didn't expect birth control to be here, but shout out.
Julia: There she is. There she blows
Amanda: Nothing more romantic than than control over your own body in married folks.
Julia: You're right. You're right. This is a total aside, but it was something that I found when I was doing the research on like where that heart shape comes from, and also why we associate hearts with love.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: But do you know why we put wedding rings on our left ring finger?
Amanda: No.
Julia: So the Romans believed that there was a vein on that finger that led directly to the heart. And so placing a ring there basically was claiming the heart of your spouse.
Amanda: Cute.
Julia: Isn't that really cute?
Amanda: It would, it would be more balanced if it was on the middle finger, I guess.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Looking at my own hand.
Julia: But that's not where your heart vein is. Amanda, according to the Romans.
Amanda: Who am I to argue with Roman understandings of anatomy, Julia?
Julia: There we go.
Amanda: There we go.
Julia: But the first heart shape that was meant to actually represent a heart came from 1344, in a story called The Romance of Alexander. Now, in one of the illustrations in the story, it shows a woman holding a heart, presumably received from the man opposite her in the photo. And it kind of spread from there. It became popular in the 15th century, and we started using that kind of like heart symbol, shape to represent our hearts.
Amanda: Interesting. I mean, I guess there was, like, a vaguely sexual connotation with you know, if anyone was aware of these contraceptives, because people were a lot more aware of like tools they needed than I think history gives them credit for. Then maybe it makes sense that it would kind of transmute into just something resembling sex and then implying love later on.
Julia: Now, there's also a couple of different like theories as to why that shape was used in the romance of Alexander. Some think it is a call back to that extinct fennel seed. Some say that they represent the curves of the female body, which is a little bit apocryphal in my mind. And then others think it was inspired by the pear, like the shape of a pear, which was thought to have been a symbol of romantic love in France since at least the mid-1200s.
Amanda: That's why the partridge is in the pear tree. Julia, I'm understanding this song so much more now.
Julia: Yeah. Yeah. Do you really have in your mind blown by The 12 Days of Christmas?
Amanda: Why so many birds?
Julia: So many birds! I heard recently that someone was like, well, all the birds represent Jesus. And I said, What now? Tell me I couldn't find anything really online about that.
Amanda: Oh, no!
Julia: So I'm not sure if that person, like just their priest growing up, made that up or but I couldn't find anything about it. But it was a very quick Google search to maybe it's out there, and I just don't know.
Amanda: I'm honestly, I'm sure you, like, heard this on a podcast and, like, looked it up on your phone, but I'm picturing you at a restaurant being like, Aha, like, under the bar, texting, like-
Julia: Oh, I do that very often too, as well. But I think I did hear about someone say it online. I'm not entirely sure. Amanda flowers specifically roses, because roses are what we think of around Valentine's Day, right?
Amanda: They are red Julia, but I've never been given a sort of bouquet of violets, which I'd be into. They're beautiful.
Julia: Yeah, I do like violets. They're very pretty. So St Valentine is in modernity, associated with roses, but it's not because like roses seem to play any important role in his stories, but rather, it seems like it was more of a recent development starting around, I would say, like the Victorian age. But we'll see. Roses, early in Christianity were associated, actually with the Virgin Mary, hence the eventual creation of the Rosary and its name.
Amanda: Oh.
Julia: And of course, there are some like Greek stories where the rose is a symbol of beauty. There is one story where the Rose was said to have been a nymph who was killed only to be revived by the Goddess of flowers, Chloris, who then asked the other gods to give a gift to the rose. Aphrodite gave the gift of beauty. Dionysus gave the gift of its enchanting scent, and the Charities gave it radiance and charm.
Amanda: I mean, great. Send some of that my way.
Julia: It's beautiful, right? There's also supposedly a story of Adonis, who was the lover of Aphrodite whose blood was said to have been spilled on the ground, which created the red rose to represent Aphrodite's love for him and the grief over him being named by Aries, who was jealous of him.
Amanda: That is a very Victorian thing to think and talk about and buy a card about, was you're buying somebody a cultivated Hot House rose.
Julia: Yes, of course. And these stories probably influenced later stories from like the Middle Ages, where red roses were gifted as a part of courtly love. And then it was further solidified by Victorian flower language in which red roses represent true love.
Amanda: There it is, there it is
Julia: There it is. Now, I think this is kind of important to talk about, like the potential ancient origins, about the way that we celebrate St Valentine's Day, because there are love festivals that probably helped inspire our current celebrations. In particular, there is a Ancient Roman celebration which coincided with, like, the life of Saint Valentine, you know, because he was out there during the Roman Empire. But Lupercalia was observed from February 13 to 15th.
Amanda: Okay?
Julia: Now, it celebrated the gods Pan and Juno. Juno being the goddess of marriage, pan the god of sexuality and fertility, right?
Amanda: Let's go, syncretism. Let's go!
Julia: Go syncretism. It was a festival that was, I think, less about love, more about like fertility and health and purification. And there was a priest and historian named Albin Butler who claimed that Lupercalia had a ritual in which boys and girls drew names from a jar and then they were like romantically and also sexually coupled up during the festival, based on this.
Amanda: Don't love that but okay.
Julia: I don't like that either. And also, this guy really was making those claims with no actual proof.
Amanda: Okay.
Julia: He was the only one to make this claim. It might have like he's the only one to make this claim, but it might have led to our connections between these Roman festivals and the Valentine's Day letters, which became increasingly popular in the mid 1700s which is when Butler was writing about this.
Amanda: And reminds me of our growing up where we would often have, you know, draw names from a hat, write write Valentines to that child, which I don't know if people still do, or if was a mainstream experience outside of suburban New York in the late 90s and early 2000s but always struck me as as very odd.
Julia: Yeah, I think, like, it's also really interesting, because the reason that happened to us in elementary school was they really didn't want anyone to be left out. And Valentines could easily be like a popularity contest, even though-
Amanda: Oh yeah, you know, the Ashleys are getting all the Valentines, and Amanda sitting there the back going, Oh no!
Julia: The Ashleys and the Britneys, you know, they're all getting their Valentines.
Amanda: Oh, to be an Ashley or Brittany in the late 90s.
Julia: To have the same name as everyone else.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: You were like one of three Amandas, though. So that was something, at least.
Amanda: I know, but the Ashleys and Britneys were hotter. Julia Amanda didn't have a hot energy.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: For me.
Julia: Yeah. No, that's That's true. That's true. So it was also said that as Rome became increasingly Christian, Lupercalia, festivals were banned by Pope Gelasius, the first who may have replaced the celebration instead with the purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, aka candle mass.
Amanda: There you go. It's like, instead of thinking about about fertility and some and some Roman things, let's think about fertility as the mother of God.
Julia: Let's think about how pure the Virgin Mary was, and she still had a baby.
Amanda: Still had a baby, so so pure, it's immaculate.
Julia: Again, there's not a ton of evidence to the fact that that's what that Pope did. It's from much later writings than when he was actually the Pope, and it's possible that it's just like the dates coincide, and mid-February just happens to be a significant time in which the slow arrival of spring is happening, right?
Amanda: That's fair.
Julia: Chances are we'll never know if Valentine's celebrations were immediately inspired by Lupercalia or if it was just like an interesting little coincidence, but I think it's worth talking about regardless.
Amanda: Coincidences do happen, even in history.
Julia: Exactly.
Amanda: Exactly.
Julia: I want to finish this out by fast forwarding to the modern day and talking about some unique Valentine's Day celebrations from around the world, you know, kind of apart from the universal Valentine's cards, flowers and confections, right? So, for example, in the Dominican Republic in El Salvador and Colombia, for example, they play a game somewhat similar to Secret Santa, which is called Amigo Secreto.
Amanda: Oh!
Julia: Where the gifts are not shared among lovers, but also, like friends.
Amanda: Cute.
Julia: In many Latin American countries, they incorporate not only the romantic relationships, but the platonic ones as well, which I think is really nice and very sweet.
Amanda: It was not invented by Parks and Rec people, and it is not limited to cis women. You can you can celebrate your pals. I promise
Julia: Exactly.
Amanda: Exactly.
Julia: Valentine's Day is also celebrated in many East Asian countries, and in terms of spending China, South Korea and Singapore spend the highest amount on Valentine's Day gifts.
Amanda: Wow, damn. Singapore really punching above their weight population wise.
Julia: I was gonna say, I think in Singapore, they did a study, and the average person spent somewhere between $100 and $500 on Valentine's Day gifts every year.
Amanda: That's a lot of money.
Julia: It's a lot of money.
Amanda: Geez.
Julia: So also in Japan, most Valentine's Day traditions are, like, kind of uncommon, like the Valentine's card and the flowers and stuff like that, except for giving chocolates.
Amanda: Oh!
Julia: So giving chocolates is like the main thing. You do on Valentine's Day in Japan, and there is kind of like a hierarchy, a different type of rank of chocolate that you would give to someone based on how you felt about them. So for example, like cheap chocolate was a obligatory gift for unpopular co workers, whereas you would save your extremely nice chocolate, which is known as Honmei choco, true feeling chocolate for someone you really cared about.
Amanda: I see, okay, that's that's pretty cute.
Julia: Yeah, Japan also started a tradition associated with Valentine's Day chocolate giving in 1978 that became extremely popular. So in Japan, it's the women giving chocolate to all of their male coworkers and friends and loved ones, right? But on March 14, exactly one month after Valentine's Day, it is a day called White Day, where men are expected to gift chocolate to women as sort of like a reply day.
Amanda: Great. Love it so cute.
Julia: I like that a lot. And then in South Korea, there's even a third day that has been added to this kind of tradition. They celebrate Valentine's Day, they celebrate White Day. And then on April 14, there is Black Day, which is those who didn't receive any gifts on either day go to eat black noodles to lament their life as a single person.
Amanda: Oh no, that sounds less of a holiday and poor like a terrible thing to say to someone like, oh, how was your Black Day? Like, whoa. Why are you assuming that I got nothing?
Julia: You're like, if you really want to roast them and be like so on April 15, you're like, so how were those noodles yesterday?
Amanda: Exactly. Oh no!
Julia: I really like that. I really like that.
Amanda: I think that's also like trolling to like, next level.
Julia: Yeah. I mean, that's also like, how February 15 is like Singles Awareness Day in the United States, technically.
Amanda: No, it's not.
Julia: You can look it up.
Amanda: No.
Julia: Look it up.
Amanda: I thought it was Amanda buys discount candy day.
Julia: Well, that's also something that I guess you could do on Singles Awareness Day. So I just think these are really fun kind of current celebrations of Valentine's Day. And if you have an interesting Valentine's Day tradition or one that we didn't talk about in this episode, I would like to hear about it. Send us an email at spiritspodcast@gmail.com and tell me about your tradition or your favorite Valentine's Day memory, because I want to read them.
Amanda: I think so too. And hey, if you want to reach out to somebody and say, This day is not all about romantic love, I'm thinking about you today. BFF, then send them. Send them this clip. We have a clip from this episode up on our socials @spiritspodcast, Tiktok, YouTube, Instagram, all the places, and send it to them, and it's here to celebrate your friends together.
Julia: Don't send them the one about being roasted for eating noodles on April 14. Don't send that one.
Amanda: We don't need to pressure people about being single.
Julia: Well, Amanda, the next time that you get really excited that postage stamps have been invented, and now you can send all the anonymous Valentines that you want. Stay creepy,
Amanda: Stay cool.
Julia: Later satyrs
[theme]
Transcriptionist: KM Transcripts