Valentine’s Day is a very old tradition, thought to have originated from a Roman festival.
The Romans had a festival called Lupercalia in the middle of February, officially the start of their springtime.
It’s thought that as part of the celebrations, boys drew names of girls from a box. They’d be boyfriend and girlfriend during the festival and sometimes they’d get married.
Later on, the church wanted to turn this festival into a Christian celebration and decided to use it to remember St Valentine too.
Gradually, St Valentine’s name started to be used by people to express their feelings to those they loved.
