Valentines Day ... a "history"

 February is half way over, Today home school class is a little of the basics. Mostly they are working on some phonics and grammar review, and had been doing a lot of Valentines day crafts. I did quite a bit of research to find out if there is a non secular meaning behind "Saint" Valentines Day. Like St Patrick's Day there is little fact, just a lot of secular custom and church mythology, I have yet to find any REAL historical connections. However, something I ran across listed as "legend" I did like.
 According to lore, Saint Valentine was actually a Catholic priest during the time of Roman Emperor Claudius II, who was supposed to have ruled that single mean remain unmarried.  Claudius II, believed that mean without families made better soldiers. The priest believed to be St Valentine secretly preformed marriages for these young men, when the Emperor  found out about this he jailed the priest.
  Since I don't have historical dates I am not planning on teaching this as actual history but rather as "The Legend of St Valentine". I want to stress to the girls that romantic love isn't always about fairly tales or roses, but rather as God sees it. That marriage is sacred and sacrificial as well as magical at times. God ordained the family and then the Church. That scripture teaches us first of Agape love (that is the perfect love God has for us) "For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believed should not perish but have everlasting life." John 3:16......... and through the worldly experience of marriage we can learn spiritual lessons of Christ's sacrifice for the Church. We can also experience the fullness of His love through service to our spouse. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her
Ephesians 5:24-26 and Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.
Colossians 3:18-20.  Although most of this will be Elementary version, I do think that I will teach these lessons in this context to our teenager! Valentines Day may seem just like chocolate and roses, but I think it is a wonderful opportunity to prepare little hearts for God's salvation.... and remind the older ones to guard their hearts. 
   For me Valentines Day is a day to show my husband a little something extra. Nothing overly fancy just something. I never buy him anything , save a gaming card, lol. I just try and remind him that he is my forever Valentine and that I am thankful for his love and sacrifice for our family. After-all the most romantic thing I ever got was the invitation to stay at home to raise our children. 


    So what about crafts? You know I have a few of those planned. I have a humungous stash of craft foam my mother in law gave me yesterday , so I think I am going to come up with a valentine themed picture frame for the girls to do.
 Yesterday we made some stamps re using bottle caps , you may remember a few years ago me writing about how we save those since they aren't easily recycled to reuse. 
 This stamps are supper easily. My next post will be listed in the Homeschool section with Pictures and a tutorial. I have loads of valentines leftovers from years past and of course the day after sales that I encourage EVERYONE to hit*. 



*(The Dollar Store has licensed character valentines for $1 today... wait until the 15th and they will be $.50 .. if there is anything left on the 18th it with be 75% off or more... just saying this is huge for moms of more than one child.) Even as a homeschool mom these Valentines come in handy when participating in Co ops, Church groups and just family friends.