Although it can be romantic to go out to dinner with your partner on Valentine's Day, it can also be a lot of fun to plan a dinner that the entire family can enjoy. If you have small children, it can sometimes be hard to plan an evening out for just the two of you. So, focus on your family, and enjoy Valentine's Day together. Here are some fun ideas that you can use to prepare a Valentine's Day dinner that everyone will enjoy.
Fun Table Decorations
Your Valentine's Day dinner is sure to be a lot more enjoyable if you take the time to create some fun table decorations. If your children are old enough, this can be a great way for them to contribute to the festivities. Try making a Valentine's Day placemat for each family member. All you'll need are some Valentine's Day cards, a piece of poster board, construction paper, crayons, decorations such as glitter or sequins, and a roll of clear contact paper. If you've saved Valentine's Day cards from previous years, this project can be a great way to use them creatively. Or, simply buy a box of inexpensive children's Valentine's cards. To make a placemat, cut a piece of poster board to the desired size. Your child can then decorate it with cards, construction paper hearts, crayons and other flat decorations. Then, cover the placemat on both sides with clear contact paper. Make sure that the contact paper pieces are about a half inch larger than the size of the placemat on each side, to ensure a good seal. You could also use Valentine's Day patterned paper plates, plastic cups and napkins, combined with red plastic cutlery to add a festive touch to your table. A vase of pretty red carnations or roses will add the perfect finishing touch.
Valentine's Day Menu
It can also be fun to add some Valentine's Day themed foods to your dinner menu. Try focusing on foods that are red and pink, such as redskin potatoes or chili. You could also use food coloring to add a bit of pink color to one or more of your dishes. For example, pink potato salad or pink applesauce would both be fun ideas. Cookie cutters can be used to create heart shaped biscuits. Or, cut heart shapes out of bread slices to make fun garlic or cheese bread. Fruit punch or red soda would work well as a beverage. To add a fun twist to beverages, purchase an inexpensive heart shaped ice cube tray, and freeze some Valentine ice cubes.
Dessert is when your Valentine's Day theme can really shine. Try making cupcakes from a white cake mix, adding red food coloring to add a pretty tint. Then, top them with pink tinted frosting. You could also roll red gumdrops flat on a sugar coated surface, cutting them into heart-shaped cutouts with a small cookie cutter. Top each cupcake with a red gumdrop heart. Heart-shaped cutout cookies would also work well for dessert, and could be another fun project for children to work on before dinner. Or, serve parfait glasses filled with layers of red gelatin cubes and whipped cream.
A family Valentine's Day dinner is a great way to spend quality time together. In fact, you'll probably find that once you plan this holiday dinner once, it will become a family tradition celebrated for years to come.
Jessica Ackerman writes for WallDecorandHomeAccents.com where she provides detailed instructions for decorating with Tuscan initial wall grille and discount wall art.
More related articles:
Fun Valentine's Day Sweet Treats
Bake a Valentine's Day Cake in 10 Minutes
Fun Things to do With Your Kids for Valentine's Day
Comment on this article or submit your tip to CreativeHomemaking.com.
Click here for a printer friendly version of this page.
Follow me on
Pinterest.
Receive new article links via
Twitter!
Follow Creative Homemaking on
Facebook!
Recommend this article to a friend!
Search our article archives.
Click here to subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
