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 SCIENCEÂ I shared this fun science experiment last year with my local readers at Hudson Valley Parent.
TRUE MARK OF FRIENDSHIPÂ 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 CHEESEÂ 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 MamapediaÂ
  
   
  
 
If you still need gift ideas may I suggest:
42 Comments on Friday Favorites – Valentine’s Day Traditions
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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…
I still love the ones my mom wrote me every year. 😉
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!
That’s not immature- we all like what we like! I do enjoy flowers at random times of the year. 🙂
love letters to your daughers is a wonderful gift for when they are older! I don’t do Valentines day and it was a relief when my husband said he didn’t either!
My husband was relieved after I told him it wasn’t my holiday! lol
I like Valentine’s day, but it isn’t my favorite either. I will say I love the day after though when all the chocolate goes on sale!
Yes!!! 🙂
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!
We are going on year 17 and still no Valentines! 😉
What a sweet tradition…writing letters to your girls. I wished I would have started something like this. We don’t really celebrate. We get our girls some little something, and then we have a special dinner.
I’m sure you could start any time you want. We do a little something.
I love the True mark of Friendship! Beautiful idea and colours, but what I love the most is the letters you write to your daughters.
Thanks. I love doing them every year!
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
I have twins so it’s always double the parties!
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 🙂
It also doesn’t cost anything. *wink*
I love finding new ways to make Valentine’s Day memorable for my young daughters. I’m looking forward to doing the heart science experiment with my eight year old this weekend!
Hope you like it! We had fun with it!
I love that you admit V. day is not necessary and make it a family day. Hope you enjoy it and do get something romantic!
Thanks! I forgot what romantic looks like. LOL A new food processor isn’t sexy? Ha!
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
Can do anything you want !;)
It’s when I give my kids their Valentine’s gift and watch as their eyes light up and how excited they are when they open it.
Belle | One Awesome Momma
Always a great feeling!
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.
So jealous!! That sounds like an amazing gift!
Those are such great ideas! I would love to try the aerial yoga class! I would probably end up hurting myself but it would be a blast to try!
I thought I’d hurt myself, but it was a blast!
And now I want to take an aerial yoga class. What a fun thing to do with friends and I bet it’s a killer workout!
You use muscles you don’t even know you have! LOL We had a great time!
My parents used to write letters to us on Valentines Day and it was so sweet! I mean, we used to tease her about them but we loved them.
I love your idea for love letters to your children! This V-day we are going out to dinner as a family! 🙂
We are going out to dinner to! My kids are older now and can handle it better.
I really love the love letters to your children idea. What a beautiful memory they will truly enjoy for years to come. Thanks got sharing this idea.
I look forward to it every year!
I love those book marks! They’re amazing! I really love that it’s something that inspires reading.
They were so fun to make!
My husband and I never made it V day a day. Now that I’m a mom I try to embrace the day as more of a family day.
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
Funny you mentioned Galentines as i have been hosting my own for 5 years. It is definitely my Valentines Day tradition with my gals!