Valentine’s Traditions
My sweet almost 7 year-old loves traditions and rituals even more than I do. He cracks me up.
He’s requesting some kind of tradition for Valentine’s Day. Once we start something, he will never, ever forget it. So I feel some pressure to get it right the first year.
The hard thing is that Valentine’s Day is so close to my birthday and his birthday, so I don’t want to do anything that overlaps with our birthday traditions. Henry suggested that we write love letters to each other, but I’ll already be writing Henry a letter on his birthday. It might be fun to get a cake on Valentine’s Day, but we already do that for our birthdays.
His friends wake up to baskets of candy. I have no desire to put something like that together every year! Presence, not presents.
Maybe a scavenger hunt that includes all the reasons I love them?
Pizza and a movie on a school night?
Pancakes for breakfast on a school morning?
Maybe we make brownies and Valentine’s cards for the neighbors?
We could make Valentine’s treats and deliver them to a nursing home?
Maybe fill out a little template about each other, similar to this book?
Here’s a sweet idea for a whole day of intenseness–too much for me!
All right. I think we will have a Family Love Day: wake up early for waffles/pancakes, fill out an appreciation template about one person, brainstorm ideas about what to do when we get home from school (e.g., movie night, game night, making treats for neighbors, going to the children’s museum, etc.). We will bookend the day with family time–talking about about we love about each other and spending time together. That sounds right!
4 Comments
Mary Blakley
If you're worried about it being "too much" given the proximity of birthdays, why not keep it simple and stick with a meal? It doesn't even have to be a big to-do, just a little something special. Every now and then we have sprinkles on top of our pancakes, and it bring a little extra magic to the meal without bringing a ton of stress. Something like that also helps for those times when tradition doesn't happen due to life circumstances, because it's such a small thing and not a big meal/event/activity.
BabyD
I love the simple idea of just making valentines for family and friends, and going to choose a candy or treat to add. This year me and my son made chocolate bark and decorated it with a few little cake decorating hearts (along with almonds and dried fruit) and it was gorgeous. Super easy. Also, I just found out about small organizations that gather cards (they have to be homemade) and deliver them to sick children or elderly. You can google sending cards to children/elderly etc and lots of sites come up. I thought that was cool, especially for such a "commercially driven" sort of nonsense holiday. Whatever you choose will be great!
Ari
We do heart shaped pancakes every year on Valentine's day. They really only take a few minutes to make (I use a squirt bottle to make the shape) and my kids just love them! They think it is so special. I also leave a simple homemade card or note and a little treat, but the pancakes are their favorite part.
Sara E. Cotner
Thanks for sharing, BabyD and Ari!