–We spent over $1 billion on Valentine’s Day candy last year, making it the fourth most popular holiday for candy sales behind Halloween, Easter and Christmas. By the way, those stupid little candy hearts with printed messages like “Hug Me” or “True Blue” first appeared in the 1800′s and were called “Conversational Lozenges.”
   –Feb 14 is the second-largest greeting card holiday after Christmas. About 163 million cards are exchanged (not counting those packaged valentines exchanged by schoolkids).
   –You want gifts? About a third of us buy jewelry. Most popular gift –six in 10 buy chocolate (see below).
   –Let’s talk flowers. The two weeks preceding Valentine’s Day account for nearly 13 percent of florists’ sales each year. It comes out to nearly $40 million for that three-week period, a spending increase over 300 percent more for flowers than we spent in the entire month of January. Then again, lots of vendors jack up prices by as much as 90 percent since they know people will pay on Valentine’s Day. A dozen red roses will cost you anywhere from $50 to $90 in some parts of the country.