The History of Valentine's Day and More

Have you ever wondered about why we celebrate Valentine's Day? We celebrate it in honor of St. Valentine, and I'll tell you the history of Valentine's Day:

The legend has it that St. Valentine was a priest in third century Rome. Claudius II, the emperor, decided single men should fight instead of married men. He also made a law to go with that ruling in which no young men could marry. He did this so his army would be younger and stronger. Valentine found this unfair and secretly started marrying young couples. Once Claudius II found out, he put Valentine to death.

Another legend for Valentine's Day is that Valentine was an imprisoned man who fell in love with the jailer's daughter. Before he was put to death he wrote a letter to his love saying, "Your Valentine."

Cupid comes from Greek mythology. Cupid is the son of the god Venus and Venus is the god of love.

You can celebrate Valentines even without cards. Here's how to make a Valentine bingo.

YOU WILL NEED

• Construction paper
• Ruler
• Magic markers
• Two large bags of candy hearts
• Small bag

Here's how make the bingo cards. For each card, cut the paper into a five-inch (12.7-centimeter) square. Use a ruler to draw five equally spaced rows and columns with the marker, creating 25 squares (see above). Each player counts out 25 candy hearts and writes the saying from each candy in a square. (It's OK if the same saying appears on several of your candy hearts.) Start playing. All players throw their 25 hearts into one bag. Pick one person to be the "caller." The caller shakes up the bag, then pulls one heart out of the bag at a time and reads the saying out loud. Using coins or extra candy hearts as markers, players mark the called sayings that appear on their cards. The first player to line up five hearts across, down, or diagonally yells "Bingo!"