5 Easy Ways to Make Valentine's Day Extra Special for Your Kids
I’ve become less and less keen to buying things. The more things I have, the more overwhelmed I get. And that’s hard with an internet filled with “buy this and buy that” and really, it’s fun to gift my kids things. I’m a gift giver - that’s my love language. I LOVE carefully choosing gifts for friends and family and my precious kids and they love opening those gifts just as much. But things - there are just so many things in our world and through the years (the past two years specifically) I’ve really cut back on this kind of stuff and have focused my attention on all of the gifts I can give my kids without buying them a bunch of things that will end up in a drawer and end up overwhelming me.
Of course they still get gifts but what if on Valentine’s Day, instead of putting together big baskets full of nick-knacks, we focused on gifting our kids connection and words and less of the things. I can tell you that for us, they enjoy this just as much and end the day with smiles on their faces (and I know, because we’ve actually never given them baskets full of gifts on Valentine’s Day - a handwritten note and some chocolate for us!)
So this year, I decided to come out with some ideas for you all, some simple and easy ways to make Valentine’s Day extra special for your kids without buying a bunch of things. Of course there are “things” listed in here, but they’re all useful and can be used far beyond the day of love. And remember, you don’t need to go crazy - simple is fantastic.
Here it goes…
5 Easy Ways to Make Valentine's Day Extra Special for Your Kids
1. Festive Meals
Remember, you don’t have to go crazy. We love making these mini heart waffles for them or sprinkling some pink sprinkles in their breakfast is simple but so fun for them. Put a little heart shaped whipped cream next to their meal or cut those strawberries into hearts. There are so many ways to make their meals extra special and extra fun, without stressing yourself out with extravagance.
2. Handwritten Notes
These are forever my favorite because they always light up reading the things we love about them. It’s just the most special way (in my opinion) to pick out a sweet card for each of them and write down all of those things that make them special little humans. Try it - it’ll light up their world.
3. Themed Pajamas
Yes, I know this is a “thing” but they can wear pajamas all year long. Quick Note: Size up so they get more use out of them. I’d say 95% of my kids’ pajamas are from a holiday - Christmas in July, Valentine’s Day in November. We wear our pajamas to the ground and they love matching for these special days.
4. Love Stories at Bed Time
There are so many cute kids Valentine’s Day books out there. We actually have a little reading corner in our play room where I switch out the books every month. In December, we have Christmas books in there, in November the books are all about thankfulness and you guessed it! In February, those two little shelves are filled with kids Valentine’s Day books and books all about love. We’ve collected them through the years so even once special book to read them on Valentine’s Day is so fun for them!
5. Sweet Treats
There are so many ways to do this - baking together, decorating store-bought cookies with frosting and sprinkles or heck, even buying a box a cookies and putting them in a cute little jar for them to wake up to is plenty to bring a smile to their faces. Before we decorated cookies, I was bummed that I couldn’t find heart shaped cookies (and the cookies I bought were too hard for the heart cookie cutters to cut through) but then I realized that it didn’t matter to them! They had just as much fun frosting round sugar cookies with pink and white frosting and sprinkles than they would have had with heart shaped ones ;)
But beyond all of that, the most important thing we can do for our kids on Valentine’s Day is to show them and tell them how much we love them. Smothering them with kisses and hugs and snuggles and verbally telling them what we love most about them is more than enough and those words and actions will last a lifetime.
