Start New Valentine’s Day Family Traditions (That Are Easy & Fun!)

I love these 15 simple, kid-approved Valentine’s Day traditions for the family! Make Valentine’s Day special and start a new, sweet tradition this year. Ideas include kids’ activities, ideas for Valentine’s books, songs, menu ideas and more! #Choosingyourbattles
I love these 15 simple, kid-approved Valentine’s Day traditions for the family! Make Valentine’s Day special and start a new, sweet tradition this year. Ideas include kids’ activities, ideas for Valentine’s books, songs, menu ideas and more! #Choosingyourbattles

Valentine’s Day with the Family

St. Valentine’s day, with the focus all on love, is one of the great smaller holidays to start building traditions with your kids! 

I mean, what better to celebrate than love? 

Usually, people think of St. Valentine’s Day as a romantic holiday, but if the focus is on love, then it makes complete sense that this can be a family holiday, too!

Bonding with your kids is the best way to show your love for them. And traditions are an amazing way to build some of those bonds!

Using Valentine’s Day Family Traditions to Create Memories

Unfortunately, people can be intimidated by the word, ‘traditions.’ Maybe you think of some complicated ritual that takes lots of money and time to put together?

It doesn’t have to be that way! Traditions are just “long-established customs or beliefs that have been passed on from one generation to another.” Essentially, they’re something you do, that’s passed from one generation (you) to another (your kids). If you find a great one that sticks, then you’ve got a tradition! Ta-da!

One of the really cool parts about how our childhood memories work is that we tend to remember either what happened all the time, or the singular events that shaped us. Creating a Valentine’s Day tradition is an almost sure-fire way to make sure your kids remember the good things from their childhood.

I love these 15 simple, kid-approved Valentine’s Day traditions for the family! Make Valentine’s Day special and start a new, sweet tradition this year. Ideas include kids’ activities, ideas for Valentine’s books, songs, menu ideas and more! #Choosingyourbattles

Easy Valentine’s Day Family Traditions

The good news is that creating new traditions doesn’t have to be hard! In fact, I highly recommend keeping it simple and do-able

Because, let’s be real. The simple and do-able activities are the ones you’ll repeat next year, and are the ones that get happy memories tied to them, and the ones that become traditions. 

As a guide, just think of these 2 things:

  • Set the scene and….
  • Use your 5 senses

Set the Scene

Just like a good book, you’ll have to decide who the main characters are for your tradition. Will it just be your nuclear family? Are grandparents invited, too? Or is it a class event? 

Make sure to do this step first, so that you can accommodate everyone as needed.

Choose the Setting

Where does this tradition occur? It could be at home, in the backyard, at the park, at church, in the car- you can have traditions anywhere!  (I’m starting to feel like Mr. Fox in Green Eggs and Ham!) The point is to be purposeful about the choice, not to make it difficult. Or maybe you decide that it’s a rotating venue! 

There’s no wrong answer to this, you just have to choose something.

I love these 15 simple, kid-approved Valentine’s Day traditions for the family! Make Valentine’s Day special and start a new, sweet tradition this year. Ideas include kids’ activities, ideas for Valentine’s books, songs, menu ideas and more! #Choosingyourbattles

Using Your Senses to Create New Valentine’s Day Traditions

It can be overwhelming when you’re trying to create traditions and memories for your family. How much is enough? How much is too much? 

Using your senses can be a great way to create a tradition step-by-step, and solidify great childhood memories. Especially since so many of our memories center around a sensory experience.

Whether it’s a delicious cake that takes you back to your birthday’s growing up, or a sprinkler that reminds you of that great 4th of July, our memories are often tied to our senses.

1. Smell

Smell is especially associated with creating strong memories, so don’t skip this one just because it doesn’t seem obvious. (The olfactory center – i.e. smell- is the closest to the hippocampus, which is your memory area in your brain. This helps explain why smells are especially powerful at transporting us to different times and places.)

–>Valentine’s Day Family Traditions (that incorporate smell):

  • Try out these super cute Valentine’s themed coloring pages with scented markers and decorating them with scented stickers. This works especially well if you reserve those markers or stickers for special occasions!  
  • Scented candles. I assume chocolate and flowers are the smell of Valentine’s, so see if you can find something you like! 
  • Or you can go for the original fresh cut flowers! You don’t have to splurge, the grocery store ones will smell just as good 😁

2. Sight

I think this is the sense that most obviously leads you to think about pretty Valentine’s day DIY decorations. So, here are some very do-able ideas!

–>Valentine’s Day DIY Decorations

3. Taste

This might be the easiest part of a new Valentine’s Day family tradition to take on. You have to eat anyway, right? So why not make a little something special? If you want even more help, just ask your family what they want on the Valentine’s Day menu!

–>Valentine’s Day Menu for Your Family

  • These are the sweetest heart-shaped pizzas from Jean over at the Sweet Happy Nest. And they should be able to please even your picky eaters!
  • Heart-shaped sugar cookies are the obvious choice, but I love how Mrs. N.  shows us how much these simple traditions mean in the long-run. 
  • Marshmallow Wands seem so easy to make, and you can definitely get the kids involved in this ‘menu’ item!

4. Touch

For Valentine’s Day family traditions that involve the sense of touch, you can do a sensory bin (or something similar) for younger kids. Or you can try hands-on crafts for slightly older kids. 

And of course, for touch and Valentine’s day, I definitely recommend lots of physical affection!

Do a spin on the ‘birthday spankings’ and try ‘Valentine’s kisses’ instead. I imagine that would be a big, silly, showy kiss with the littles. Or butterfly kiss, or nose kisses. For older kids/tweens/teens you can even do a European-style kiss-on-the-cheek multiple times (14 times? Like the date?)  Do what works for your family- but have fun with it!

–> Ways to Make Valentine’s Day Special for your Family

  • These cute “I love you to pieces” hearts are great for elementary age kids. Even the boys will love it since it involves shredding paper!
  • Little kids, and any kid who still likes to get hands-on will love this sensory Heart Puffy Paint activity! 
  • Heart Sensory Soup is a water-y (or, rather soup-y) version of a sensory bin. Which is awesome, because how many times are kids encouraged to do water play in the winter?! And if you’re afraid of the mess, you can do the activity in the tub!

5. Sound

Sound, along with smell, may not be the most obvious sense to consider when building new Valentine’s Day family traditions. Until you remember that music and stories fall in that group! Try making a family playlist for Valentine’s Day (or I’m sure Spotify has a bunch) or reading some Valentine’s day kid books with your little ones.

–> Valentine’s Day Kid Books and Music

Easy Valentine’s Day Family Traditions

Creating new family traditions doesn’t have to be hard! If you’re brand-new at this, I recommend starting with just one or two senses this year, and then build-up your Valentine’s Day from there! 

And here’s my last tip- make sure to leave yourself a note on your phone with a reminder for Feb. 1 for next year. You can remind yourself of what you did this year and what your hopes & ideas are for next year’s Valentine’s Day family traditions!

If you need more ideas, check out my Valentine’s Day Pinterest board:

Further Reading

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6 comments

  1. There are so many great ideas shared here! Can’t wait to make some special memories with my kiddos this Valentine’s Day 💕

    1. Thanks! I’m pretty excited for Valentine’s Day this year, too! Taking some of that pressure off of making it picture-perfect has brought so much fun back to it!

  2. Thanks for linking to my Activities about Love post! This is a great list you’ve curated here. I’ll be sharing it with my social followers and email list soon! Valentine’s Day is the perfect opportunity to have fun with our kiddos and shower them with love. This is a great post to help families do that.

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