But why do we celebrate St Valentine's Day? Where did it come from? Was it just a commercial idea dreamt up by entrepreneurs of yesteryear (and if so why didn't they invent a LOT more similar celebrations? Grrrr!) or does it have some more deep seated mystical relevance? Oooohhhhh (spooky mystical ghost sound).

And whilst we're on this journey of enlightenment, why do we celebrate it in the way we do? Why cards flowers and chocolates? Why only the 1 day and why this particular day? Thankfully we tasked our analytical brain box (Amanda) with these questions and she gleefully scurried off to find the answers for your delectation's...

The Origins of St Valentine's Day

The origins of Valentine’s Day are thought to date back to the time of the Roman Empire around 300AD and the martyrdom of a Roman Priest called Valentine with festivals linked to fertility taking place in mid February (what is it about those Romans? Everything was about killing and sex!)

These festivals are far removed from the current notion of Valentine’s day, as they included the sacrifice of goats and involved boys wearing the resulting hide slapping women in the face!  In a precursor to Blind Date, another ritual was the placing of girls names in an urn, boys then drew a name and the matched couple spent the year together to see if they fell in love. They could have saved themselves 364 days 23 hours and 59 minutes by simply using our Love Compatibility Test on the Little Love Bot (blatant plug number 1 for our new website!).

Seems that 300AD was a popular year for all things 'naughty' as it is also thought to be the year when the Kama Sutra was written! Bazinger!

Why do we send Valentine's Day Cards?

The first recorded Valentine’s card dates back to the 1400s, with the first manufactured cards appearing in the 1800s. But why send cards in the first place? Well, in 'Ye Olde Times' people used to sing to their Valentine in an demonstration of their love. Then, in the 1400s some bright spark had the notion of jotting down these verses and adding drawings and embroidery and before you knew it the Valentines Day card was born!

Seems us humans are a soppy lot! Last year over 1 billion Valentine’s Day cards were sent in the world, which marks a whopping 14.2% of the population. The average card costs £3 which means that as a species we spend a gargantuan £3billion’s on cards!

Why do this? In its place we could buy 18 Octopus yachts like the one owned by Microsoft Co-Founder Paul Allen? FYI the Octopus comes complete with 2 helicopters, a swimming pool and a 10 man submarine and you’d still have a bit left over for the £20m a year maintenance costs.

Sadly 1 billion cards equates to 500 tonnes of card, which would use 12,000 trees - enough to cover the UK  4 times over. Instead spending billions on cards this Valentines Day we recommend everyone saves their money whilst still conveying a romantic message. How? Simply leave a message of love on the Little Love Bot (blatant plug for our awesome new website number 2!). The money saved could buy Buckingham Palace 3 times or rebuild the White House a whopping 31 times. In your face American buildings of importance. Ours are soooooo much better!

Flowers and Chocolate - the way to a womans heart

By far the most popular Valentines gift is flowers with 2.3 million bunches being sold in the UK last Valentines, enough to fill 77 football pitches and equating to £34.5m.  For £34.5m you could have bought Ireland on Dubai’s famous World development and still had a bit left over for a Bugatti Veyron.

The red rose is a flower synonymous with love, which is probably why it is the most purchased flower at Valentines and the most expensive.  Part of the expense is down to the time taken to produce the perfect single stem, which is 50-70 days, by which time you could have rowed the Atlantic or completed the Tour de France 3 times!

What do you do if you’re not expecting to receive any flowers this Valentines?  Well you could do what 15% of American women did last year and send them to yourself. Britain 2, America 0!

After flowers, chocolates are the next most popular Valentines gift with £29m being spent on them last Valentines, which is roughly 5.8m boxes.   If all these boxes were stacked side by side they would reach from London to Moscow.

Struggling to find the perfect gift? (I think you know where this is going...) Then why not check out the 'Gifts of Love Generator' on our awesome new website the Little Love Bot (blatant plug number 3 yada yada yada!).

How much should you spend on the other half?

When it comes to how much to spend on a valentines gift men are the most generous with 33% spending more than £20 on a gift compared to women who tend to spend less than £20 #gomen!

But what about going that extra yard (or 0.9144 metres for those who prefer metric)...

If you’re looking to splash out this Valentines, how about snapping up Castle Carbonana in Italy?  This castle, which dates back to 400BC comes with its own helipad (added much later) and makes a perfect get away if you have a spare £10m lying around.  It would take the average person in the UK 365 years to earn enough to buy it but based on current salaries and bonuses RBS banking chief John Hourican could buy it from 2 years work and still have £1.8m in loose change. In fact if all the RBS chiefs pooled their bonuses for the year they could buy it 50 times over!!!

If a castle is a little bit out of your price range how about your own private island in Brazil? A snip at only £1.6m.  You could have the money in 59 years, or alternatively you could ask David Beckham to give you 24 days pay or Wayne Rooney a gargantuan 49 days earnings.

Other gifts of exuberance... How about the World’s largest cut emerald the size of a watermelon valued at $1.15 million (obviously not THAT popular as it recently failed to sell at auction), a diamond encrusted bra by Victoria Secrets for $10,000,000, a night in the imperial suite at President Wilson Hotel in Geneva for  £20,800,  or a cute little pedigree German Shepard puppy for between £2,000-£15,000! Woof!

What do Celebrities buy one another?

When it comes to expensive Valentines gestures then take a look at how the celebs do it.  Before they were married Katy Perry bought Russell Brand a Lilac Bentley Brookland for around $341,000 and when Courtney Cox was married to David Arguette she gave him a carousel horse costing around $630,000 and George Clooney treated his then girlfriend to a romantic $40,000 hotel suite.

But does money buy you love and happiness?  Based on these examples, no.  Brand and Perry split this year, Cox and Arguette split in 2010 and Clooney and Larson went their separate ways in 2008.  Maybe best to stick to flowers and chocolate!

So there you have it... Next time you leave it till the last minute to buy your nearest and dearest a Valentines Day card from the local garage with a bunch of manky old flowers remember that you're potentially disrespecting 100's years of tradition. Not to mention the Little Love Bot.

Sources: BBC, CBNC, The Telegraph, Professional Florists UK, Office of National Statistics, British Musuem, www.history.com, In style, www.celebs.com. Forbes, www.conservatree.org, Daily Mail

The boss comes back on Monday, so we’ve been enjoying our last week of craziness before order is restored. We’re hoping they’ll be back with loads of stories from their 3 week romp around Oz (and maybe some presents for the staff, pretty please?) Perhaps we’ll even put some of their holiday snaps up on here!

I’m sure you’ve all be waiting with baited breath to find out who won our big Valentine’s Day competition! Well, wait no more. The golden envelope is here and we are very happy to announce our loved-up winners!

In third place.....

Abereat Sabir!

“Would you believe it could all start from a game of hide and seek?

As I put on the blindfold, I walked around with my arms outstretched. Well, I don't mean to boast, but I am very good at this game. All my other senses come alive as I become attuned to the movements around me. However, one of my friends decided to slip out of the room. As I followed, I seemed to lose my co-ordinates. Bang! I walked straight into the door of the cupboard under the stairs! Suddenly, I heard a floorboard creak. Frustrated, I began to berate my friend for leaving the room. As I made my way along the hallway to the foot of the stairs...I misjudged my location again. Bang! I'd walked into the staircase railing again! Now definitely frustrated I climbed the stairs to where I knew my friend was. I grabbed hold of her foot and said victoriously, ‘See I got you!'

As I pulled off my blindfold to my horror I realised, this was not my friend! There sitting on that step of the staircase, the person whose foot I was holding was....no other than my whole future, smiling down goofily at me, as the blood rushed to my face!”

We loved his story of ‘blind love’ (geddit?) So much that we awarded him third prize!

In Second Place....

Naomi Muggeridge!

“I was a student nurse living with three other nurses. One of the girls had a boyfriend in the RAF. One evening he came over with a friend to mend her car. As I was leaving to go out for the evening I walked past a tall, dark handsome stranger standing in my hall.
The following day I asked my friends boyfriend about the stranger and he said 'oh, he’s going to phone you later, he had a dream about you last night and you were feeding him crumpets!' ..'mmmm!' said I, 'crumpets!!' and the rest is history..One dog, 2 cats, 2 rabbits and 2 children later...”

Crumpets are always a massive hit in the Prezzybox office and when crumpets and love mix, the results are spectacular!

A load of valentine’s goodies are winging their way to the lucky winners as we speak!

And finally, Last but most definitely not least, Our Grand Prize Winner!

In First Place...... (drum roll please)

Carroll Marsh!

"I met my gorgeous hubby in 1978 in weirdly funny, yet sad circumstances. I was visiting my lovely Gran, when she said she had a decorator upstairs. I made a cup of tea and she called him down. I didn’t really fancy him that much as we all sat down on the settee with our cuppas.
Gran loved her budgie, Billy, who was flying round the room.

Suddenly Billy landed on Gary, the decorator’s foot at just about the split second he was crossing his legs. Next thing I knew poor Billy was hurtling through the air heading towards the lovely roaring coal fire!!

It was like slow motion Aaaaargh! We still laugh about it!!!”

This story made us laugh and cringe in equal measure (I also have her word that they bought Gran a new budgie after the incident!)

So congratulations, Carroll, the Edible Arrangement and all those other goodies are on their way to you now!

A massive ‘congratulations’ to our winners and a great big thank you to everyone who entered!

Have a great weekend everyone...

Kat x

Our trophy-shelf groans out in protest as we win yet another prestigious award – the first ever Shopsafe award for Customer Service!
“This award recognises the superb levels of customer service given to Shopsafe customers over the last 12 months. In particular, the levels of service given to customers over the busy Christmas period were second to none.”

Shopsafe said – “We've never given this award before, but felt the high standards set by Prezzybox deserved some recognition.”

A great big “thank you” to the staff and customers at Shopsafe, we couldn’t be happier with our shiny new award. It’s great to receive some recognition after our small but dedicated team battled with the busiest Christmas on record. We’ve proven once again that we can provide customers with unbeatable service even under pressure!

But enough ego stroking, we have some more great news for you all!

Valentine ’s Day is coming up, so we’re giving you an opportunity to win a Valentine’s Day you’ll never forget. We want to hear the story of how you and your partner first met. Was it love at first sight, did you fall in love with your best friend or was there a funny, clumsy set of circumstances that drew you together? Either way, write your story in the box on the competition page to be in with a chance to win!

If you win first prize, you’ll receive some fantastic Valentine’s Day goodies including a £50 voucher valid at Edible Arrangements!

You’ll also receive a 2 for 1 Spa Day at one of the spectacular Bannatyne’s Spas nationwide to enjoy with your partner and a whole host of other Valentine’s Day goodies!

Second and third place will also receive an amazing Valentine’s Prize Pack to share with their partner. If you don’t win, you still might receive a small token from Prezzybox,

So what are you waiting for? Get yourself over to the competition page and enter!

Lastly, as it is Friday, I’ll leave you with a video to get you ready for the weekend! Wouldn’t it be cool if you could commute like this...

Have a great weekend!

Kat x