No Significant Other This Year? Celebrate a Family Valentines Day

224 Shares

Inside: Celebrate Valentine’s Day this year by showing your children how much you love them with these family Valentine’s Day ideas. Your relationship status doesn’t matter this year – it’s all about your love for your kids.

This post contains affiliate links.

Celebrate The Kids This Year

Valentine’s Day: you either love it or hate it. And your relationship status usually dictates that feeling.

After years of dreading the holiday as a single parent, I decided one year to go all out for two people I love more than anything else in the world: my kids.

I spent weeks planning how I could surprise them throughout the day and make them feel all my love. After that Valentine’s Day, I no longer dread Valentine’s Day as a single parent, I look forward to it, just like any other holiday.

Whether you’re dreading Valentine’s Day or not, there’s no reason not to celebrate the little loves in your life with these family Valentine’s Day ideas.

And as much as you may not even want Valentine’s Day to exist, it’s actually a pretty awesome day to celebrate your love for your child.

Family Valentine’s Day Ideas – Shower Your Kids with Love

Start the day with a smile

Begin the day with a special breakfast. What would put a big smile on the face of your sleepy, yawning, eye-rubbing child first thing in the morning?

Each household differs as to what determines a surprise breakfast:

Doughnuts
Biscuits and Gravy
Sugary cereal you always say no to
Breakfast in a restaurant in their PJs
Traditional eggs, bacon, and sausage

The key is to surprise them with something out of the ordinary.

I like to keep it simple early in the morning. I hate to cook and I dislike leaving the house in the morning.

Cinnamon rolls are our “special breakfast”. I topped off store-bought cinnamon rolls (yes, I said store-bought) with red icing hearts for a Valentine’s surprise. I placed the decorated cinnamon rolls on the counter the night before so the kids could find the surprise in the morning before I woke.

Keep ‘Em Moving with a Kid’s Scavenger Hunt

Kids of all ages love scavenger hunts of all types. Send them off to see who can find the most of each item. Keep the older kids engaged by asking them to take photos of the items with their phones.

Something Red
Something Pink
Heart Shaped Object
Find four objects to make the word LOVE
A picture of our family hugging
A red flower
Chocolate

The scavenger hunt will keep them busy while you treat yourself to a cup of coffee.

Treasure Hunt for Kids

Send your child on a treasure hunt to find a Valentine’s gift from you. You can put out the clues the night before or when they’re busy eating breakfast so they won’t see where you’re hiding the clues. Leave clues in each area listed below, leading to the hidden gift.

(Hand them this clue) Your first clue is where I lay my head.
(Put this clue under your pillow) Your next clue is where the dirty clothes are
(Put this clue in the washing machine) Your next clue is where your snow boots belong
(Put this clue in the closet) Your next clue is where we get clean
(Put this clue in the bath) Your next clue is where I sit to eat dinner
(Put this clue on the kitchen chair) Your next clue is where your clean socks go
(Put this clue in the dresser) Your present is where a cooked turkey would be

–>Get the printable of this treasure hunt from the Valentine’s Mini-Bundle.

As you can tell, I don’t use my oven. I also keep the gifts pretty simple. The first year I did this, they received Unicorn Farts, a favorite card game for the family, SkipBo, and a cup full of candy and Valentine’s Day Coupons, which you can get below from the Valentine’s Printable Mini-Bundle.

No Cost Ideas

Coupons

Valentine’s coupons are the perfect no-cost gift. Download the printable Valentine’s coupons from the Valentine’s Printable Mini-Bundle. They are all blank so you can personalize them yourself.

Depending on your budget here are some other Valentine’s Day activities to do with the kids:

Picnic
Bike Ride
Movie
Favorite Fast Restaurant
Dinner Date
Doughnuts before school
Ice cream cone
Stay up 30 minutes past bedtime
Extra 30 minutes on iPad
Board game of your choice

Personal Touch

Write your child a yearly love letter. Then hang it up in a frame in their bedroom and then each year place a new one on the front, always keeping last year’s letter behind it. After many years, your child will have multiple love letters from you to them.

Or on nice card-stock write a word to describe your child for each letter of the alphabet. This can be very uplifting for a child that thrives on words of affirmation. My children treasured this gift so much, they made me the same gift the following year for Mother’s Day.

Get the “Why I Love” alphabet template below from the Valentine’s Printable Mini-Bundle .

print it out
write your child’s name on the top
fill out a different adjective to describe them for each letter of the alphabet

Family Games – Let the Fun Begin

Valentine’s Day is the best holiday to play Minute to Win it games.

We use cheap, stackable Valentine’s candy that we buy multiple bags of and I don’t worry about throwing the candy on the floor and tossing it. Every year, we look forward to playing the same seven games during a full afternoon together.

Valentine’s Day This Year

It can be tough to face a holiday like Valentine’s Day when you’re single.

But if you have your kids, then you have the perfect, willing love just waiting to spend the day with you.

Print out your Valentine’s Day coupons, treasure hunt, and Why I Love template from the Valentine’s Printable Mini-Bundle and see how many of these family Valentine’s Day ideas you can incorporate into your day.

No, it won’t be the same as dinner, roses, and a movie. But it may just be more amazing than you thought.