Valentine’s Day is only days away and I realized I haven’t posted anything about the holiday yet! To be honest, I have never really been a big fan of Valentines’ Day.  Don’t get me wrong I love eating all the pretty chocolates and I do enjoy getting some flowers from time to time. But to celebrate a day to love my friends and family seems silly when I love them every day! OK most days, but still more than one day of the year.

I’ll never forget the first Valentine’s Day my husband and I celebrated he did all the cliché things to try to win my heart. He cooked a fabulous dinner, bought me roses, and gave me a piece of jewelry and a box of chocolates. I gave him …. a pair of boxers with hearts on it. And a card. In my defense, we had dated only two months by this point and I thought it would be premature to go all out for one day. After that he got the message I am a practical girl and I like to share my love every day in the little things I do for my loved ones.

So we don’t really have any Valentine’s Day traditions. We do something new every year like visit a museum or an aquarium. I make their favorite dinner and bake them a cake because having dessert on a Tuesday screams special in our house. But the one tradition that I do keep every year is one that my mother started with me, I write my girls a love letter. They are too young to read them now, so I tuck them away in a special box for safe keeping. When they are old enough to read on their own I will share with them. These are the gifts that keep giving, these little treasures that we put away and only revisit when we need them.

This year we plan to relive our very first family Valentine’s Day by going out to dinner at the same restaurant and stopping for chocolate at the same little shop we did nearly six years ago. We don’t need big gifts to say I love you, and I have certainly outgrown the need for jewelry. I am happiest when we are all healthy and spending our time together laughing.

Click on the links below to see some other fun ways we’ve celebrated Valentine’s Day together at home.

I HEART SCIENCE I shared this fun science experiment last year with my local readers at Hudson Valley Parent.

TRUE MARK OF FRIENDSHIP We made these cute paper craft book marks for our classmates that I found on krokotak.com

 

GALENTINE’S DAY – That time I took an aerial yoga class with my mom friends.

THE POWER OF CHEESE The year I threw together stuff for my kids preschool class.

 

What is your favorite part of Valentine’s Day? Feel free to leave a comment below, or join the discussion on Facebook!

The Whatever Mom is a twin mom learning to let go of perfection. She shares her real life struggles with parenting through her blog and contributes her time and talents as a writer to Hudson Valley Parent and Masshole Mommy. When she isn’t writing you can find her chugging coffee, folding laundry and not judging other parents. Don’t forget to subscribe via email so you never miss a blog post again! You can also find her work featured on Mamapedia 

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42 Comments on Friday Favorites – Valentine’s Day Traditions

  1. Ok – I am so impressed with the love letters for your children each year. That is going to mean THE world to them when they can read them – and many years after that! So sweet…

  2. I like the idea of it but then I feel that my husband does a great job of showing me all the time how much he loves me. So I guess I am just immature, bring on the flowers and candy!

  3. Love that you write the girls letters! What a gift that is, they will cherish those in years to come. We don’t really ‘do’ valentines day. And we’ve been together 26 years!

  4. I love valentines with my kids, it is such a fun day. They are getting older now though and this is my first year with now preschool party! – – Sad

  5. I absolutely love how unique all your idea are! V-day is definitely not my favourite but if I ever have children, I’m definitely taking a page out of your book and writing love letters to them 🙂

  6. This is such a lovely idea – it makes me wanna actually do memorable things on this Valentine’s Day just so we can do them again next year haha! x

  7. Valentine’s Day is usually not that big of a day for me. This year has been a little different though. My husband took me to see Bon Jovi for Valentine’s Day a little early. That has long been one of my favorite bands, and I love my husband a little more for taking me to see them this year.

  8. I’m always been a super romantic so I used to make a big deal out of Valentine’s Day, but now my perspective has changed, it’s more about family. I love the idea of writing letters to daughters

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