Your Guide to Valentine's Day in America

🌟 Episode Highlights

• where did Valentine’s Day come from
• common traditions
• how to celebrate in America

Episode Transcript

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Transcript

Hello, hello! Welcome to English Extras! I’m Jean, your guide to making your English sound natural and authentic.

This podcast is all about helping intermediate and advanced learners move beyond textbook phrases so you can express yourself with confidence.

If you want to follow along with today’s episode, I put a link to the transcript in the description for you. It’s full of key vocabulary, definitions, example sentences, as well as additional resources to help you take your learning to the next level.

Ready? Let’s get started!

What is Valentine’s Day? And why is it such a big deal in America? First of all, America loves a holiday. From September to July, every month there is a major holiday in the US. (Poor August, it’s the only one that doesn’t really have a holiday. It’s too hot in August to have a holiday anyway.) For this episode, we’re going to zoom in on February’s holiday: Valentine’s Day. Prepare yourself for lots of pink.

So Valentine’s Day is a holiday of love and is celebrated on February 14. You might be wondering, “Why do we call it Valentine's Day anyway?” I’ll explain.

The holiday is named after Saint Valentine–well, one of them anyway. There were actually several Saint Valentines. The most famous story is about a Roman priest from the 3rd century. Emperor Claudius II–the ruler at that time–banned marriages. Valentine thought, “What? That’s not fair,” and secretly performed marriages anyway. Then he was caught, thrown in jail, and later executed, but he became something like a symbol for love.

The holiday really started taking its romantic shape in medieval Europe. At that time, there was this super sweet idea that birds chose their mates in mid-February. Writers like Geoffrey Chaucer actually mentioned this in their writing and it helped popularize the connection between Saint Valentine and romantic love with February. 

Fast forward to the 1800s, and that's when Valentine's Day really started looking like what we know today. The Industrial Revolution made it possible to mass-produce things in general, including greeting cards, and in 1847, a woman named Esther Howland began mass-producing Valentine's Day cards in America. Because of that, she's known as the “Mother of the American Valentine”! 

Nowadays, it’s estimated that 145 million Valentine’s Day cards are sent every year. There’s only one holiday in America when people send more cards–that’s Christmas. So Valentine’s Day is second only to Christmas in terms of sending cards.

So we know Valentine’s Day is about love, but what does that look like?

I mentioned pink before: that’s what it looks like. Pink, red, hearts, chocolate, anything even a little bit cute. Starting right after New Year's, stores transform into a sea of red and pink. Picture this: heart-shaped everything, chocolate boxes stacked to the ceiling, and more stuffed animals than you can imagine. 

But, here's something that might surprise you–in America, Valentine's Day isn't just for couples! Here, we celebrate all kinds of love! Let me give you some examples.

Kids at school? They exchange little cards and candy with their classmates. Fun fact: many schools have a rule that if you bring Valentine's cards, you have to bring one for everyone in class. Usually you can go to a store and find a box of small cards specifically for an entire class, and there’s typically themes, like superheroes or cartoon characters. I definitely remember doing this when I was in elementary school. After elementary school, I don’t remember doing it. We had different traditions in middle and high school.

At my high school, for example, you could buy cans of Crush soda–Crush is the name of an orange soda. And to have a crush means to like someone romantically. So before Valentine’s Day in high school, you could buy a Crush can for your crush and the school would deliver it to your crush during class on Valentine’s Day. At other schools, you could buy flowers for your crush. It depends.

For adults, it gets interesting. If you are a woman who is single, you can have “Galentine’s Day,” which is celebrated on February 13. It’s a time to celebrate your friends! This actually came from the very popular TV show Parks and Recreation, if you can believe it. It’s not often that fictional holidays jump into reality, but here we are. 

For Galentine’s Day, you might get together at a restaurant or a friend’s house and have a great meal. You might watch a movie or do some other fun activity together. It’s a time to celebrate being friends.

But what if you have a partner? Let's talk about dating culture around Valentine's Day. If you're dating someone in America, there's usually a high expectation to do something special. But here's a tip: communication is key! Some couples go all out with fancy dinners and expensive gifts, while others prefer something low-key at home.

If you are planning to go to a fancy restaurant for Valentine’s Day, don’t wait! Book way in advance! If a restaurant accepts reservations, they will likely all be full on Valentine’s Day. So, plan ahead!

Another good reason to plan ahead: Valentine's Day can be pretty expensive in America! A lot of people spend money on a fancy restaurant, on gifts like flowers, candy, and jewelry, or on a special vacation.

But you don't have to break the bank. There are so many ways to celebrate Valentine’s Day without spending lots of money, or any money at all.

My husband and I, for example, we don’t like fancy restaurants and we don’t like buying fancy gifts for each other or doing anything fancy in general. It’s just… not our thing. Instead, we might buy each other a small gift or a sweet card. We might cook a nice meal together or do something a little bit special, like go to the movie theater.

Before we wrap up, here's a fun fact: Americans spend around 1 billion dollars on chocolate during the Valentine’s Day season. What makes that statistic so crazy for me is that I don’t like chocolate that much, so I don’t spend any money on chocolate during Valentine’s Day.

Remember, whether you're single, dating, married, or just want to show appreciation to friends and family, there’s a place for you in American Valentine's Day celebrations. It's really about spreading love and kindness in whatever way feels right to you.

That's all for today! I hope this helps you understand why we get so excited about Valentine's Day here in the States.

Thanks for listening! Don’t forget to check out the transcript for extra information to help you make the most of this episode.

Until next time!

Bye!