(Stock Photo/Craig W. Walsh) Baking cookies is a fun, family activity for Valentine’s Day. The kids can help roll dough and use heart-shaped cookie cutters.
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FEBRUARY 27, 2006
By Jen Akers, HappyNews Citizen Journalist

Valentine’s Day is a special day that includes your true love, dinner, flowers, chocolate, candles, and kids. Wait a minute ... kids? For many couples, Valentine’s Day is a celebration of love that includes their children. Parents make time for loving and fun activities that go beyond traditional romance.
Baking cookies is a fun, family activity for Valentine’s Day. The kids can help roll dough and use heart-shaped cookie cutters. Sweet additions can include decorating with candy hearts, red and pink jimmies and writing the recipient’s name in frosting.
“I see Valentine's Day as a celebration of love in general,” confessed Yvette Deluca, a writer and home school mom in Arizona. Deluca bakes goodies, like heart-shaped cookies and muffins, with her children. Deluca and her boyfriend, Al, celebrate Valentine’s Day with their six children ages 2 months to 11 years old.
Their living room transforms into a candlelit party with finger foods and board games. The kids also get traditional Valentine’s Day gifts. Each child receives a different colored rose and a chocolate heart. Deluca’s 10-year-old daughter leads the other kids in craft projects before the holiday.
Crafts allow kids to make Valentine’s Day presents for their parents. Homemade cards can be made with markers, stickers, yarn, buttons, ribbons, construction paper and foam mats. Younger ones will need help, but older kids can create their own projects, including their own poems and drawings.
Homemade Valentine’s Day cards, with the children’s pictures, are a clever tradition for Laura Rees and her family. Rees, a human resources manager from Ohio, shares the holiday with their 4-year old son and 6-month-old daughter. They spread their love to extended family and friends with gifts of cards and cookies.
“I find that I have much more time in February than in December, and it helps me and hopefully the friends we send cards and cookies … to battle the icky, winter Ohio weather blahs,” stated Rees.
Spreading the joy to teachers and grandparents, Denise Altman’s family starts making Valentine’s Day gifts early. In January or early February, Altman, a registered nurse in South Carolina, gathers lots of craft supplies like stickers, doilies and rubber stamps. She helps her three kids decorate boxes and other crafts.
Turning ordinary meals into Valentine’s Day menus is easy with a little planning. Baking molds for eggs, muffins and pancakes can twist a meal into a Valentine’s Day special. To sweeten your usual fare, add chocolate chips, whipped cream and fresh fruit.
“On the morning of Valentine’s, we will have heart-shaped waffles on heart plates, and I usually give them cute socks or hair bows (for the girls) or something special for my son. I also make them Valentines from me,” Altman said of her family’s traditions with their 8-year-old son and 6-year-old twin daughters.
These are only a few ideas on how to share the day with your children. Just let your creative heart be the guide. Make a path of Hershey’s kisses, flower petals or construction paper hearts to a Valentine’s Day gift or a scrumptious meal for everyone.
A family centered Valentine's Day does not need to lessen the parents’ role as a couple. Parents can set an example of the love shared between them and between parents and their children. Many people can be included in the celebration, as families are diverse with married couples, single parents and blended families. Remind children that Valentine’s Day celebrates all the people you love.
“I look at Valentine's Day as just as important as Christmas, because Valentine's Day celebrates US—our love and commitment to each other as a family,” admitted Deluca of her blended family. “Valentine's traditions are one way to help create the parental bond.”