Its all about RED, PINK and WHITE!!

Good afternoon and Happy Valentine's Day 2012!!
Hope you all have a chance to give hugs and kisses to the ones you love today.  How do you celebrate Valentine's Day?  Our family celebrates it a little differently starting 5 years ago.  Today is my son's Birthday Day and he was the best Valentine's Gift a mama ever could ask for.  The cake on the yellow plate (photo above) is my son's birthday cake.  I make one for him every year.  I figure why not while he is still little and won't complain about being a heart. :-)

I got wondering how did Valentine's Day come about.  Why is it a day for lovers? According to www.wikipedia.org :

The Early Medieval acta of either Saint Valentine were expounded briefly in Legenda Aurea.  According to that version, St Valentine was persecuted as a Christian and interrogated by Roman Emperor Claudius II in person. Claudius was impressed by Valentine and had a discussion with him, attempting to get him to convert to Roman paganism in order to save his life. Valentine refused and tried to convert Claudius to Christianity instead. Because of this, he was executed. Before his execution, he is reported to have performed a miracle by healing the blind daughter of his jailer.
Since Legenda Aurea still provided no connections whatsoever with sentimental love, appropriate lore has been embroidered in modern times to portray Valentine as a priest who refused an unattested law attributed to Roman Emperor Claudius II, allegedly ordering that young men remain single. The Emperor supposedly did this to grow his army, believing that married men did not make for good soldiers. The priest Valentine, however, secretly performed marriage ceremonies for young men. When Claudius found out about this, he had Valentine arrested and thrown in jail.

Another really interesting fact I found on www.epilepsyfoundation.com :
Did you know St. Valentine is considered to be the patron saint of epilepsy? True story.
Medicine and religion have long been intertwined, however medical practitioners were sometimes regarded skeptically in medieval times causing people to seek spiritual intervention for their illnesses.
In addition, brain disorders in the 14th and 15th centuries were widely regarded as supernatural phenomena incited by evil spirits or the devil.
Because many people believed their symptoms were the work of dark spiritual forces, it made sense for them to combat their perceived tormentors with an antidote to evil in the form of saints—in particular patron saints—who were believed to have restorative abilities for specific ailments.
Information on the origins of St. Valentine’s connection to epilepsy varies. Some accounts suggest he is connected to epilepsy because the name Valentine is similar to the German word for “fallen.” Epilepsy was once known as the “falling sickness” because some seizures cause a person to lose consciousness and fall. Still other legends propose that a 3rd century bishop named Valentine von Terni freed the son of a Roman orator from an epileptic seizure.
The good news is, medical research and an increasing variety of scientifically proven therapies have improved the lives of the nearly 3 million people living with epilepsy in the United States, significantly diminishing the need to turn to supernatural forces for respite!
So, in the wake of this Valentine’s Day, when all the sugar-coated, floral-scented hype has passed, remember that Valentine’s Day is not just for lovers, it’s for people with epilepsy, too.

Why not a cute craft for today.  Thank you DLTK for this wonderful and easy craft.  Instructions: http://www.dltk-holidays.com/valentines/mcandy-butterfly.htm

So a little history, a craft and my baking are part of today's Valentine's Day here in the UNIQUE household.

Enjoy!

Sab.