Celebrating Valentine’s Week

Valentine’s Week involves extending Valentine’s Day into a week-long celebration by giving a gift a day for a week. We promise—we didn’t manufacture this holiday. But it’s right up our alley!

Have you heard of Valentine’s Week? It extends the holiday of love into a week-long event, celebrating by giving a gift a day for a week. Although it might sound like it, The Days of Gifts did not invent this holiday week. The observance has origins as mysterious as the actual day itself. Whatever the roots, the evolving trend is to extend celebration and give gifts of experience.

A Mysterious History

Pinpointing the exact origin of when or why we celebrate Valentine’s Day by giving cards, chocolates, and flowers is mostly unknown. Many of the stories, involving uncivilized ancient Roman matchmaking rituals and the assassinations of Saints named Valentine, are mostly gory and certainly not romantic. Valentine greetings appear to have started to occur in the 1400s and 1500s and were written about by Shakespeare and Chaucer. People most likely exchanged handmade cards in some form during the 1600s and 1700s, and in the mid-1800s, one of the first known production of Valentine’s Day cards began with a Massachusetts printing company. From there, modern-day card companies, chocolate makers, and florists have expanded and allowed for easy gift-giving and celebration of the holiday since the early 1900s.

The List

As mysterious as the origins of the annual one-day observance, Valentine’s Week celebrating has emerged. Lots of lists and even full-blown websites are all over the Internet about the specific days of Valentine’s Week and how to celebrate; on the other hand, articles relating to the actual origin of this seemingly new celebration are not as easy to uncover. Many, many sources, however, reveal that the days leading up to and including Valentine’s Day are called Valentine’s Week and are to be celebrated by giving a specific item each day:

• February 7: Rose Day
• February 8: Propose Day
• February 9: Chocolate Day
• February 10: Teddy Day (as in a Teddy Bear)
• February 11: Promise Day
• February 12: Hug Day
• February 13: Kiss Day
• February 14: Valentine’s Day

At some point, somewhere, someone created this Valentine’s Week list that has now expanded across the Internet, and we will accept that. But for many people attempting to follow the list, questions might arise, such as why “propose day” occurs on the second day of the week instead of the seventh, whether substitutions are allowed (such as a “wine day,” perhaps), and what should be given on Valentine’s Day … and probably many more.

The Experience of Extending Celebration

Thinking outside of a specific list, though, the concept is right up our alley: celebrating Valentine’s Day with a gift a day for a week. According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), consumers are expected to spend nearly $20 billion on Valentine’s Days gifts this year, with an average of roughly $144 spent per person. And the NRF adds that Valentine’s Day has been evolving from just candy and roses. This year, 23.7% of people are planning to give a gift of experience, and 42.3% of people “would love to receive” those experience-oriented gifts. Thankfully, a variety of experience-based gift-giving options are available to celebrate for a week. A person could:

• Stick with the rules and follow the Valentine’s Week list mentioned above;
• Keep it simple and give a handmade card or personally written letter every day for a week;
• Plan for events to occur (like eating out or going to a concert) on each day that week; or
• Go all out and give a unique gift of experience: a gift a day for a week with either a do-it-yourself approach or buying a tailored gift package (hint, hint)

In the end, knowing why we celebrate Valentine’s Day or Valentine’s Week is fairly irrelevant. The point is to celebrate someone you romantically love, a family member, or a close friend. And when we extend celebration to be a multi-day gift or a gift a day for a week, we enhance excitement, enjoyment, surprise, joy, and fun beyond a one-time occurrence. Now that sounds like a reason to celebrate!

Specifically, The Days of Gifts offers 4-day or 7-day multi-day Valentine’s Day (or Valentine’s Week) gift packages for the days leading up to, or the days starting with Valentine’s Day and extending beyond. Take a peek!