Fun Valentine’s Day Ideas For Families
Today I wanted to talk a little bit about Valentine's Day and how to celebrate the holiday...on a budget. No, you won't find me sharing pictures of my brand new diamond necklace or dozens of roses for the holidays. In fact, if my husband brought that stuff home, I would be pretty darn mad at him.
No, we enjoy celebrating in more simple ways. Just as I shared our menu and plans for our NYE celebration, we try to apply a similar style to our Valentine's Day dinner together. If you are interested in actually seeing me physically talking about Valentine's Day (and who could resist such an idea as this?), you can view a segment I did here or you can read my article on how to celebrate Valentine's Day on a budget. These will share some practical ways to celebrate when celebrating at home or when dining out.
I wanted to also share some fun and frugal ideas that I have run across for celebrating Valentine's Day with your children. After all, this holiday is all about love and expressing your love so I think it would be fun to share some ideas for making the day special for them too. Here are some of the great ideas that I have run across:
Pudding Paints (do them in reds and pinks...if you dare!)
Kaboose Valentine's Day Crafts
DLTK Valentine's Day Crafts & Printables
Family Fun Valentine's Day Crafts & Ideas
Martha Stewart Valentine's Day Projects for Kids
Sound Off: How do you make this holiday special for your children? Any big traditions for the holiday? Do you buy or make your Valentines? Please share!
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4 Responses to “Fun Valentine’s Day Ideas For Families”
February 5th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
One thing we’ve done for the past several years is we have a fondue meal for supper…cheese fondue for the main meal and chocolate fondue for dessert.
Fondue pots can often be found very inexpensively at thrift shops, but a heavy saucepan works well, too. The *real* fondue forks are really handy to have, though, with their long stems. Those also often show up at Goodwill.
For some reason it feels like such a BIG treat to the kids to dip those goodies into cheese or chocolate. We try to make the meal part mostly veggies, so it’s not *too* unhealthy. We also dip nice whole grain bread cubes. For the chocolate, of course, fruit is best. We’ve also dipped pound cake cubes or marshmallows, too (but here again, we *try to keep it healthy).
If you want to keep them from piling on too much chocolate (or cheese for that matter), it helps to make your fondue a little thinner.
DH often will pick up a bottle of sparkling cider from ALDI and we get out the cheap but fancy stemware, too. All my kids, from teens to the 5yo enjoy this a lot.
February 6th, 2008 at 6:15 am
You know, call me old fashioned-but I think that valentines day is a holiday for lovers. That isn’t to say that I begrudge kids the innocent joys of celebrating a holiday. . . you know, the whole valentines day exchange in school with class party thing. But to me this is a holiday about Yankee Bill and I, and our love for each other.
I personally disagree with the tradition that several of my friends have of giving their kids gifts and treats on valentines day. Why should we buy into another holiday being jumped up into extra consumerism? When we were kids you never heard of kids getting presents or gifts-even small ones-for valentines. Not only is it uncalled for in my opinion, but it isn’t very frugal
Plus, I think that having the holiday basically dedicated to the grownups and their relationship reinforces to the children that their parent’s love for each other is present and important (ie the kids are not the center of the relationship).
oops, sorry to write a book.
February 6th, 2008 at 6:47 am
Jen,
I do see where you are coming from and understand it totally! The only thing that we really do with our children is make our Valentines together. I look forward to it every year and trying to make that part special for them. I also love to do things that relate to the season with crafts. We don’t buy gifts, but I do make a heart-shaped pizza and heart-shaped brownies for them. The evening is for my husband & I though
February 1st, 2009 at 9:11 am
Hey Kim!
I’m a big fan of the blog, although this is my first comment. I appreciate all the work you’ve put forth on this blog to help each of us be more frugal and a more faithful steward of the money that God gives us while on this earth!
I am the author of eJabs.com and have also recently started a new blog called DebtFreeAdventure. I thought you may like to read the post I wrote regarding A Frugal Find – Valentine’s Day on the Cheap. Also, I would like to join the blogroll, and will probably do so when I get back from church service today.
I hope your are blessed by the article. Thanks again for your great blog & congrats on your 9 children!
DebtFREEk!
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