The love month may be about partners and married couples. But for us mums, celebrating V-day is a hundred times better when spent with our children and families. We do not even need to spend a lot of money to show our love for the people dear to us. Have you got any plans yet? Here is my suggestion. Spend the special day at home with these Valentine’s Day ideas that are all about loving not splurging!
1. Have a Valentine Countdown
Here’s a great way to kickstart your Valentine plans and to build the hype! About ten days before V-day, prep paper heart cut-outs big enough for writing short messages. List down ten things that you love most about every person at home. You can also add notes expressing how happy you are for having them in your life!
Write one lovable trait, habit or skill on the paper heart. Then tape one heart every night on their bedroom door for them to read (and anticipate) each morning. What better way to start the day than make people smile and feel loved, right?
2. Enjoy a Valentine Meal
Restaurant takeaways are good, but they can be costly, especially on V-day. Home-cooked family meals are cheaper and just as delicious. All you need are your cooking skills and these Valentine’s Day ideas to make them extra special:
- Breakfast in bed. Break your rule for one day and enjoy toast or pancakes in bed or at the living room couch.
- Indoor picnic. For lunch, how about turning your living space into a makeshift park filled with comfy pillows and blankets? Then use the coffee table for your Valentine spread of heart-shaped sandwich, a kid-friendly snack board and fruit punch. Finish the hearty meal with chocolate fondue for dessert!
- Valentine taco bar. DIY family dinners are the best for Valentine’s. They are super easy to customise. The ingredients you need to set up a love-filled taco station are inexpensive, too.
3. Make Valentine Treats
Sure, you can buy the prettiest store-bought chocolate at the store. But homemade ones are so much fun (and messier) to make. So, bring out the Willy Wonka in you and make all things sweet and heart-shaped. Kids will have no problem helping out with these yummy Valentine’s Day ideas:
- Love berries. Just melt your favourite chocolate bar and dip the strawberries away! You can use large pretzel sticks, marshmallows or cookies, too.
- Cupid’s fruit kebab. Use your heart-shaped cookie cutter to make bite-sized pieces of watermelon, cantaloupe and kiwi. Thread the fruits on a skewer then serve with yoghurt for dipping. You can even decorate the skewer to look like arrows. For the scraps, you can add them to salads, smoothies or frozen pops!
- Blush pink lamingtons. Prep your favourite lamington recipe then swap regular chocolate with a pink one. You can colour the sponge batter pink, too, if you want.
- Pizza my heart. Go cheesy on this one and make single-serve pizzas with your favourite sweet or savoury toppings. There is no need to make the dough from scratch either. Just use tortillas or plain white bread.
- Banana-nuts-about-you muffins. Make this classic a little special with chocolate chips or by topping each with a V-day message.
4. Create Valentine Crafts
Great Valentine’s Day ideas are those that give us an excuse to sit together, interact and bond, like craft making. Who cares about making a mess! Let the children enjoy being creative and making handmade gifts of love. Ask them to make Valentine cards for your neighbours and friends that you can deliver or mail. Decorate your home with cute hearts garland. Or teach older kids how to make paper roses or daisies then arrange them in vases or bottles.
5. Play Valentine Games
A party is no fun without at-home Valentine activities and some healthy family competition. So, put great prizes (and funny penalties) at stake to get everybody on game mode. Here are a few parlour game options you can try:
- Stop dance. Put a twist on this classic game by having people dance in pairs to ballroom music. Impress everyone with your winning cha-cha moves and dance the night away!
- Pin the lips on the mummy. All kids know how to play the donkey version, so this should be easy and funny. Just draw a picture of mum and have the children take turns putting her lips on the right spot.
- Valentine charades or Pictionary. For the adults, have fun acting out or drawing your favourite romantic movies, love songs, romance novels and more.
- Fix my broken heart. Have everyone look for halved paper hearts hidden around the house. The first pair to make a perfect match wins the game. Or turn this family bonding activity into a jigsaw puzzle race by cutting the paper hearts into several pieces.
6. Watch a Valentine Movie
Cap your heart’s day celebration with a family movie night, complete with lots of candy and popcorn. Bedtime story-telling is another excellent option. Both are significantly less expensive than going to an actual movie theatre. And either one is perfect to have the kids all set to hit the haystack!
