Fun fact: if all the Valentine’s Day cards from one year were lined up end to end they would reach the bank account of the owners of Hallmark Cards.

Valentine’s Day is one of those very special days when the marketing people hope your sweetheart will equate the most expensive, lace laden, love song playing, Valentine’s day card with the depth of your love.

The amount of lace on the card says it all. Here’s a $10 card, I Love You; here’s a $15 card, I really Love You! Here’s a $20 card, I should have bought the wine!  You can’t put a price on Love but tell that to someone whose credit card hasn’t come up for air in years.

Have we been overtaken by people who want to put words of Love in our mouth while taking cash out of our pocket? Maybe.

It’s the little things that count. Make your mate a special cup of coffee while she ponders all the expensive things you could have done. Nothing says, “I Love You” like a double steamed milk white chocolate mocha with caramel macchiato poured over an ice float shaped like a heart with a string of cherries for the aorta.

Yes take your love out anywhere as long as it’s away from the house, which means that you care enough to get in the car and drive her somewhere.

I’m sure that some un-scientific survey will verify that if you add a huge teddy bear and some fine chocolates, the ‘feel good’ effect will last until St. Patrick’s Day when you will once again have to start proving your love by whipping up a dinner of corned beef and cabbage in a romantic setting of imported beer and a vase of shamrocks.

The timing of Valentine’s Day in the middle of February couldn’t have been better. Almost everyone who has made a New Year’s resolution to lose weight and exercise has either forgotten those vows or has lost just enough to splurge on candy and other sweets.

So let’s talk about chocolate, which is synonymous with how sweet you really are. The equation seems to be that more expensive chocolate means more love, so that a Hershey’s Kiss is to the finest chocolate what a Kia Rio is to a Bugatti Veyron.

Let’s see ‘how deep is your love’ starting with a high end Godiva ‘G’ collection

of Palet d’Or, Tasmanian Honey and Mexican Hot Chocolate. Each made of premium cocoa beans. Not bad. $120 a pound.

Let’s move on to a true declaration of your glittering love with a Delafee brand chocolate made from fine cocoa beans and flakes of edible 24-karat gold applied by hand to each praline at a cost of about $500 per pound.

Here comes undying everlasting love and affection. Knipschildt Chocolatier produces, on order only, a dark chocolate truffle with a French black truffle inside. Made of 70% Valrhona cacao, it is blended into a creamy ganache with truffle oil, hand rolled and dusted with cocoa powder. Each truffle cost about $250 with the price per pound of $2600!! At this point, you love her enough to lower your credit rating by 200 points.

Aren’t you glad it comes around only once a year?