Valentine’s Day the family way

Here are some tips on how best to spread the love and include children in the fun

Valentine’s Day has become notably less romantic in my household these past few years. A fancy home-cooked meal would be passionately rejected by the kids and wine gets knocked over so often that we have to drink it out of sippy cups. Hiring a babysitter to go out for dinner sounds like more of a hassle than it’s worth.

But having kids doesn’t mean parents need to give up on Valentine’s Day altogether. It just means we need to tweak how we recognize it, by including the kids and making it a day to celebrate the whole family.

Show the love in the kitchen Vancouver mom Tracie Farrell sets the tone for Valentine’s Day first thing in the morning by making special pancakes for breakfast. She dyes the batter pink, then makes pancakes that spell “I (heart) U,” before topping the whole thing off with whipped cream and strawberries.

And Ashley Prentice sends her kids to school with heart-shaped snacks. “I also usually include a little love note to each of my kids in their lunch,” she says.

Get crafty One of my favourite childhood memories is of making heart stamps out of potatoes with my mom. She would cut the heart shapes into the potatoes, and my brothers and I would dip our stamps into poster paint to decorate homemade cards for our friends.

There are countless ways to get crafty with your kids. String up construction paper heart garlands, or write love notes on paper hearts and hide them around your house for a scavenger hunt.

Go out for a family date Pick a place the whole family likes going together and treat Valentine’s Day like a family date night by getting dressed up and going to your favou- rite restaurant. Boston Pizza, for example, serves heart-shaped pizzas on Valentine’s Day. Practice random acts of kindness Felicia Kalmanson, from Whitby, Ont., helped her kids make a Valentine’s Day gift for her husband that lasted all year.

Together, they came up with 52 things they loved about their dad.

“We put them in a jar (and) for the next year he got to pull one thing out a week,” Kalmanson said. “Without him knowing, I saved all the scraps of paper with the messages, and the following year I glued them all onto a sheet of paper with a picture of the kids in a cut-out heart shape in the middle.” Have a night in Take the evening to spend quality time together doing something you wouldn’t normally do. Make a special dinner and enjoy a family-friendly movie about love. For little kids, there’s Lady and the Tramp and Wall-E. Older kids may like The Princess Bride or Moonrise Kingdom.

Stephanie Reynolds, from Ridge- town, Ont., says she never celebrated Valentine’s Day until her daughter was born on Feb.14, and now makes a big deal out of the day.

“We treat it like a day to celebrate the love, family and friendships we’re so fortunate to have,” Reynolds said. “I make as much as possible (that’s) heart-shaped and give lots of hugs and snuggles.”