Hallmark...Love and hate the commercialization

Hallmark
I don't know whether to love or hate Hallmark popularizing Valentine's Day!
What do you think? 
I did some research and found Hallmark does not get the blame...actually not even a bit!
I guess it is a nice way to remind people that you love them since the rest of the year it's so easy to take each other for granted! 


TYPICAL VALENTINE’S DAY GREETINGS

In addition to the United States, Valentine’s Day is celebrated in Canada, 

Mexico, the United Kingdom, France and Australia. In Great Britain, 

Valentine’s Day began to be popularly celebrated around the 17th century. 

By the middle of the 18th, it was common for friends and lovers

 of all social classes to exchange small tokens of affection 

or handwritten notes, and by 1900 printed cards began to replace

written letters due to improvements in printing technology. 

Ready-made cards were an easy way for people to express 

their emotions in a time when direct expression of one’s feelings 

was discouraged. Cheaper postage rates also contributed to 

an increase in the popularity of sending Valentine’s Day greetings.

Americans probably began exchanging hand-made valentines 

in the early 1700s. In the 1840s, Esther A. Howland began 

selling the first mass-produced valentines in America. 

Howland, known as the “Mother of the Valentine,” made 

elaborate creations with real lace, ribbons and colorful pictures 

known as “scrap.” Today, according to the Greeting Card Association, 

an estimated 1 billion Valentine’s Day cards are sent each year, 

making Valentine’s Day the second largest card-sending holiday 

of the year. (An estimated 2.6 billion cards are sent for Christmas.) 

Women purchase approximately 85 percent of all valentines.