Valentine's day?

Today is June 12th and here in Brazil we celebrate Valentine's day. I think that the real one is celebrated in February, right (a little help from my friends from the north hemisphere is appreciated!)?

Well, last year we tried to go out for dinner and it was terrible: all good restaurants were booked, we went from one to another and there was no place, until we finally ended in a really bad restaurant. So this year I decided to cook dinner for Marcos at home. Actually for Marcos and Flavinha, because we will adopt her tonight - that's what friends are for :)

But the reason for this post is because this afternoon, while I was going to the supermarket, I was listening to the radio and they were explaining how this date started being celebrated in Brazil. And there is no romantic reason behind it.

It seems that by the end of the 40's, a store asked for a marketing campaign in June, in order to improve the sales during the worst month of the year, by that time. The campaign theme was related to what in Brazil we call Namorados (boyfriend/girlfriend) and was a huge success. Since then, June 12th is Valentine's day in Brazil. Isn't it awful???

So tonight we will celebrate it having dinner at home with our good friend Flavinha and maybe watching a good movie, while thousands of other people will wait on huge lines to go to a restaurant and satisfy this commercial date.