BOSTON (AP) – Call them cold, clannish or standoffish, but Bostonians are more passionate than anyone when it comes to Valentine’s Day greetings.

Hallmark, the nation’s top greeting card retailer, says the Boston metropolitan area is its biggest market for sales of Valentine’s Day cards.

The city also tops the lists for several other holidays, including Easter, Halloween, Mother’s Day, New Year’s, St. Patrick’s Day and Thanksgiving, Hallmark spokeswoman Rachel Bolton said.

“Look at our weather. It’s difficult for people to always get out and about to share birthdays and anniversaries,” said Troy Golladay, a spokesman for Hallmark in Boston. “If you can’t get out in the weather, it’s a lot easier to send a card.”

Boston is followed on Hallmark’s list of Valentine’s Day hotspots by the Fort Myers-Naples, Fla. area; St. Louis; Providence, R.I.-New Bedford, and the Richmond-Petersburg, Va., area.

Laurie Henrichsen, a spokeswoman for American Greetings Corp., the No. 2 card retailer, said it’s not just Boston shoppers who buy a lot of cards.

“Our market research does show that people in the northeast overall, including Boston, are big greeting card consumers in relation to the rest of the country,” she said.

Boston is also one of the top markets for Papyrus, a retailer that sells greeting cards but specializes in fine papers, stationery and custom printing.

At Judy’s Hallmark Store in downtown Boston a few days before Valentine’s Day, customers crowded the store during the lunchtime rush. Many were buying in bulk, and not just for the upcoming holiday.

Dorothea Peacock, 71, of Cambridge, had a list of eight people. There was a friend who had just written a book, a son-in-law, a grandchild and more.

“I send a card for everything,” said 44-year-old Joan Hogan, of Winthrop, as she stood in a long line with a stack of five cards. “I was brought up to be thoughtful and send thank-you notes.”

Tim Carroll, 37, of Quincy, said his mother rarely showed emotion, but “she gave it to us in her cards.”

“She had seven children, so I guess it kind of trickled down,” he said.

Northeastern University sociologist Will Holton said the image of the reserved New Englander makes the popularity of greeting cards in the region’s biggest city all the more surprising.

“It surprises me because we don’t have a reputation of being particularly nice or thoughtful,” Holton said.

Historically, “everyone was just sort of hard to get through to and clannish and so forth,” he said.

Boston is a young city – a third of the population is between 20 and 34 – and that may be a reason for the popularity of greeting cards. With dozens of colleges in the Boston area, students often send cards to distant loved ones.

“There’s something about youth and romance,” said Pam Danziger, president of Unity Marketing and author of “Why People Buy Things They Don’t Need.”

“As people age, their likeliness to celebrate Valentine’s Day with a card or a gift declines,” she said.

But some have a simple reason for sending holiday greetings, like Betsy Regan of Boston, who stood in line at Judy’s with about 20 greetings in hand.

“I send them because I like to get them,” she said.