Happy Valentine's Day [12pics]

Valentine's Day is a day that honors the Italian priest Saint Valentine, but is now celebrated by exchanging of tokens of affection or friendship. Valentine's Day is Thursday, February 14, 2008 this year. It is Saturday, February 14, 2009 next year.

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Valentine's Day is coming this weekend. Come and get these sweet wallpapers for you and your sweetheart.

Valentine's Day is on February 14. It is the traditional day on which lovers express their love for each other; sending Valentine's cards or candy. It is very common to present flowers on Valentine's Day. The day is most closely associated with the mutual exchange of love notes in the form of "valentines." Modern Valentine symbols include the heart-shaped outline and the figure of the winged Cupid.

The word "Christmas" means "Mass of Christ," later shortened to "Christ-Mass." The even shorter form "Xmas" - first used in Europe in the 1500s - is derived from the Greek alphabet, in which X is the first letter of Christ's name: Xristos, therefore "X-Mass."

Each year, on the last night of October, millions of children across the U.S dress-up in costume and take to the streets for a spooky dose of Trick or Treat fun.

Today we know that Christ was not born on the 25th of December. The date was chosen to coincide with the pagan Roman celebrations honouring Saturnus (the harvest god) and Mithras (the ancient god of light), a form of sun worship. These celebrations came on or just after the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, to announce that winter is not forever, that life continues, and an invitation to stay in good spirit.

In many manuscripts of the New Testament and icons, X is an abbreviation for Christos, as is XC (the first and last letters in Greek, using the lunate sigma); compare IC for Jesus in Greek. The Oxford English Dictionary documents the use of this abbreviation back to 1551, 50 years before the first English colonists arrived in North America and 60 years before the King James Version of the Bible was completed. At the same time, Xian and Xianity were in frequent use as abbreviations of "Christian" and "Christianity"; and nowadays still are sometimes so used, but much less than "Xmas". The proper names containing the name "Christ" other than aforementioned are rarely abbreviated in this way (e.g. Hayden Xensen for the actor name "Hayden Christensen"). Pop artist Christina Aguilera is known to spell her first name as 'Xtina'.

Today in the West, not many people consider the religious meaning to Christmas. Most people in UK or Europe will not go to a religious church meeting, even at Christmas. It has become a busy race to spend money on presents, and get ready for the Day. In UK, our shops stay open till late Christmas Eve and often open again on Boxing Day with the cut-price 'sales'. (Not much holiday for the poor shop workers!) A visitor from another world would think that Christmas was a festival to the gods of money and shopping.