After the excitement of the winter holidays and the new year begins to wear off, Valentine’s Day arrives to break up the monotony of those cold, wintry days. Your kids may have you on the lookout for classroom Valentine’s Day cards featuring their favorite cartoon character, or you may be scouring Pinterest for kids’ Valentine’s Day activities as you gear up for the day’s festivities. If so, here are a few ideas to you may want to try.
DIY Valentine's Day Cards for School
Valentine's Day Food Ideas
Research indicates that teens who say they frequently sit down for family dinners report that they have better relationships with their parents and caregivers. So, if you find yourself hitting the drive through and eating in the car on the way to practice a little too often, this year may be the perfect time to try to get in the kitchen with your kids and prepare a sit-down meal together.
Food Network offers suggestions on how to have a special Valentine’s Day meal with the whole family. But your celebration can be as simple as or as involved as you wish — the key is to spend time connecting with one another. Some fun family-friendly Valentine’s Day food ideas include:
- Many brands offer heart shaped pasta this time of year that are a fun, festive take on everyone’s favorite meal.
- Some kids have a propensity toward messes, so put that enthusiasm to good use and set up a chicken cutlet assembly line to make this chicken parmesan recipe from Bake it With Love.
- If your kids can’t get enough of the light, fluffy goodness of the sugar cookies from the grocery store, they’ll love baking their own heart-shaped sugar cookies. The best part; you control the sugar content!
And when it’s time to settle in for that movie, forgo the traditional romcoms that will undoubtedly leave older tweens and teens cringing in disgust and opt for one of these family-friendly Valentine’s Day films: Lady and the Tramp (1955), Up (2009), Shrek (2001), Gnomeo and Juliet (2011), and Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown (1975).
“We love all the different holiday Charlie Brown movies, so I knew Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown would be the perfect movie,” Janet of This Mom Life 365 wrote on her blog. “Another reason I personally love the Charlie Brown movies for family movie nights is that they’re generally not long movies, so they work great since my kids are different ages and have different attention spans.”
