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Are you wondering what to do for valentines day with your kid (and SIG)? I have been thinking of some off beat, non traditional ways of celebrating valentine's day and would love to start a discussion!”

Asked by Molly Gales on 21st January 2008

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I order one of those "make your own valentines" kits from Hearthsong, and the kids sit down with me and make them for all of their friends, and our family members, then we send them. On the day, I bake valentines day cookies with them, we put them in themed bags, wrap with ribbon and go to pass them out to our neighbors. We also play a game that we created together called "Cupid" , and then they go to my sister's house for a sleepover.

These are my plans with my husband for this year....
After dropping off my children at their aunts house I'm going to come home early and sprinkle the bedroom with rose petals. I'll sprinkle them on the floor, bed, everywhere possible, leave a note or card, and make sure the room is smelling sweet. I've asked my friend, who is a singer, to go to my husbands office to deliver a "Singing Card." She will sing one or two love songs and deliver a sweet message on my behalf. I'm having eleven roses sent to him at work. I'm sending a note with the flowers saying: "Honey, here are a dozen roses to express my love for you today. You only received eleven of them because I will personally deliver the one when you get home." I will have one of his colleagues deliver a hot meal from my husband's favorite restaurant to his office with a Valentine's card at lunch. When he arrives home I will greet him with a kiss, and there will be a candlelit dinner on the table and soft romantic music playing in the background. After dinner we can dance together to the music. As you can probably tell, I've spent a long time planning this. I'm very excited and who knows what this wonderful day will lead to? :-)

Flag as inappropriate Posted by Blair on 24th January 2008
Our celebration fo the grown ups do, which may seem a little weird, is to go out to dinner the night before, to avoid crowds. Then on Valentines we all make a meal that everyone cooks (packing all their love into it! We make favorite foods for one another. Last year, my son made us Rice Crispies (not the treat mind you, we all ate a little bowl) and I cooked some veggie pie and hubby made apple cake.

As for making valentines (cards that aren't commmercial) and giving untraditional I love you gifts, here are some things that I have done and where I got the materials.
For my son's class and our relatives and friends: instead of the little packets of cards, we usually take a really funny picture of our son and have copies made. Sites like Frazzle and Kodak and Snap fish all have sales during the holidays. This year, the photo we took is one of our son, holding up a really colorful handmade (by him) that says Happy Valentine's day and has little decorations all around the edges.
Small Gift ideas (as we are meager in means, but by no means meager of creativity :P
Does your town have a creative reuse story? Here in California if you are in the east bay, try the east bay depot for creative reuse on Telegraph ave (google it for address), They have all kinds of cool stuff to kick in your creativity and the prices are CRAZY CHEAP.
Another option, browse the aisles of Michaels and grab some wooden frames to paint, put in a love poem or two, and photos that are unusual (perhaps really old ones- I have a great school photo of myself when I was 6 that I used one year, it was totally ridiculous)
Beautiful hand made paper (I go to a wonderful asian store called Mikki's paper in Berkeley. They sell paper so beautiful you could use them for curtains.) Makes a great backing for poems, special song lyrics or, creating something new.
This year I took some paper, got some frames from a cheap drug store, 5x7,I think, with sections for numerous photos (wooden frames are best) and made a craftsmen style light( Use glue gun or apoxy to make the frames stick together) that we can use as a wall sconce.
I also made a poem on cool paper for my son's room that I will paste up on the window The patterns on the paper look really pretty when it's backlit.You can use this to cover a small lamp too..

Martha Stewart I am not! But I find that handy art stores and reusable, recycling places have the neatest stuff. My son came along with me on one of my trips to Michael's Art Supply and he bought a wooden heart for $1 that is larger than his head. I think it may be going to a sweet girl he has known since they were toddlers...

Flag as inappropriate Posted by Molly Gales on 23rd January 2008
ooh a friend of mine is having an open house party valentine's day themed! that way all sorts of folks can come together (kids welcome!) and celebrate! fun fun :) other than that... i have NO IDEAS other than dinner adn a movie... yawn.

Flag as inappropriate Posted by Kate on 23rd January 2008
So I'm curious: what are your ideas? A couple of years ago, my eldest (she was then 20) had just broken up with someone, so we joked that we could "celebrate" Valentine's day by going for a walk and throwing snowballs at any canoodling couples we saw! But I suspect that's not quite what you had in mind!

Generally, our celebrations are pretty standard: pink and red cards, home-baked brownies, dinner out with my sweetie. (Which we do on my birthday, a couple of days after Valentine's Day.)

Flag as inappropriate Posted by MaryP on 22nd January 2008