Candy, flowers, heart-shaped notes — what is truly not to like about valentines day? This sweet celebration, which happens every year on February 14, is all about spreading love. 

But what exactly is Valentine’s day? How did it get its name and meaning?

Valentine’s Day, known as ‘the celebration of romance and love’, was named after a man named Valentine. While a few different stories are told about what he did to inspire the holiday, many people believe he’s celebrated for his role as a Roman priest who had helped couples get secretly married after marriage was banned in the third century AD, by Emperor Claudius ll, who believed married men made bad and corrupted soldiers.

The holiday we know all so well has memories that take place as early as preschool. Classrooms decorated with 30-foot pink and red paper chains that stretch across the whole room, bulletin boards cluttered with drawings of what we love that boom of colors, handcrafted mailboxes covered in shades of pinks, reds, and hearts of all sizes, bordered with sparkly silver and gold ribbons and paper doilies. The day celebrated of love. The exchanging of cards, candy, and little notes to confess the long hard crushes we had for what felt like forever.

Student Ludmila Conceicao has taken her own spin on Valentine’s Day traditions by decorating ACE’s

long standing Christmas tree into a ‘Kindness Tree’ — One where students can grab inspirational messages to take with them as well as admire the Valentine-themed decorations.

“I wanted to keep the Christmas tree that’s been there, but decorate it to fit with other holidays,” says Lulu, “I’d like to shout out Joanne for allowing me to do this and letting my creativity blossom. Now the tree can be a little ACE inside joke, and stay there for the rest of the year.” Lulu hopes to see other students’ ideas for the tree’s theme throughout the year.

Now, I surely cannot speak for everybody else as to how they feel, think, or how to celebrate Valentine’s day, but what I can say for sure is, it is a day when people of all ages can have the free excuse of expressing their innermost-deepest, devoted, awfully cheesy love, respect, and kindness to one another, whether that be shown in a box of chocolate, a sticker left in your preschool mailbox, your favorite bouquet, or a heartfelt hug.