No. 2 by the numbers, No. 1 in your heart

Not surprisingly, a survey found that average spending for this year's VTD would drop more than 13% from last year's total, but still top $14 billion.

• Some 63% of the group plan to celebrate Valentine's Day.
  
• The most romantic age bracket: 18- to 24-year-olds, 74% of whom will spend some of their discretionary income on items like flowers, jewelry and candy.
  
• The 25- to 34-year-old set will sink the most dollars per valentine, $160 on average.

A majority of folks say they plan to exchange greeting cards -- estimated to be about 190 million total -- making it the No. 2 holiday behind Christmas for exchanging cards. Why, you may ask, then does PEP Greetings NOT have a VTD card this year? We're working on it. It may be a little late for this year, but we like to think of it as early for 2010. Thank you cards come first, and they are only a day or two from being made public. New recipe. Beautiful art. Whimsy. Humor.

What more could a card buyer want? Other than a card in return. Always.