Celebrate Valentine’s Day With 8 Meaningful Activities for Teens

Celebrate Valentine’s Day with these 8 fun and meaningful activities for families with teens.

Despite the fact that Valentine’s day usually centers around romantic love, I love to see it as a celebration of love in general. Especially as a mom with a strong drive for instilling obedience, hard-work ethic and “being a blessing,” Valentine’s Day is the perfect opportunity to lavish love on my kids.

I have gathered the inspiration here from the three moms that I have admired my whole life: my sisters! What I have learned from them, as some have had teens decades before me, is that our love and pursuit of our children’s hearts should not wain in the least as they become teens. The dynamic for sure changes, but, as I’ve witnessed with them, and am now experiencing, it just gets all the sweeter!! We are a mix of homeschoolers and public schoolers, and we have all had so much fun with our teens.

Below, I’m sharing 8 fun ideas that we use to shower our kids (yes, even teens!) with love. These don’t require much money or extravagance… just a little thoughtfulness beforehand. No matter what your child’s love language is, you’ll find something here that will help you connect with your older kids on this day of love!

(My sweet sisters and me the last time all four of us were together! Left to right: Lindsay, Kirsten, Alicia, Me)

Decorate (part of) the House

Both Lindsay and Alicia decorate the kitchen table the night before, so when the kids come down in the morning, it already feels special! Since they’re only up for one day, something as simple and cheap as crepe paper hearts and doilies do the trick!

We hang curtains from the ceiling and the walls to make a cozy, twinkle-light-lit room within a room (not Pinterest worthy, but my kids love it! Ha ha) for our dinner.

Write love letters to your kids

Both Lindsay and Alicia set Valentine’s cards up for their kids, along with the decorations when they eat breakfast.

Every 3 years, we are typically in a hotel without a home over Valentine’s Day (somehow that’s where our rotation has landed) so I went digital one year and haven’t looked back! Every morning the week before Valentine’s Day, my kids wake up to an “I love you because…” email. It’s fun to think of 7 reasons why I love my kids so much! (I use an app called procreate to make cute cards, and highly recommend it! I know a lot of people who like to use Canva.)

This is a great opportunity to pray and ask God what He wants to affirm in our kids, or where they might need some encouragement. What a gift to be able to share some of God’s heart with our children!

(I followed this tutorial for this one. They are not all this involved!)

Buy Flowers / Balloons

No matter how old they are, my sister, Alicia, buys balloons for the boys and my brother-in-law buys flowers for the girls. Most ways to celebrate Valentine’s Day revolve around sweet treats, so I love that she started this tradition!

Fancy Breakfast

For breakfast, Lindsay makes the deliciously festive angel food cake with strawberries alongside strawberry milk! My dad would go so far as to put ice cream on our pancakes or oatmeal for special occasions, so I’m not judging if you take it that far! Alicia makes a big spread (she has 9 kids!) and the table is loaded with all kinds of their favorite food and orange juice.

Affirmations

Before my nieces and nephews leave the house for school, Lindsay verbally bathes them in the qualities she sees in them (and wants to see more of, I’m sure!). This is a daily routine in her house, but on Valentine’s Day, they get a squirt of whipped cream in their mouth to go with it! If that’s not a habit you have before sending your kids out for the day, what better day to start than Valentine’s Day!? This is a great way to sneak in some quality time with them. It’s a small but powerful little punch of time that will surely make them smile throughout the day, and give them courage to rise to who they are called to be.

Special Treat

Kirsten makes an entire batch of cookies into one huge heart-shaped cookie for each kid! Lindsay makes rice crispy treats into hearts (not forgetting her husband—he gets the big one!). Alicia makes heart shaped cookies and they all decorate them together. I haven’t locked in on a specific treat for my kids, but Charlie usually gets them a little gift of chocolates. My dad always got us our own Costco tub of Almond Roca as kids!

Fancy Dinner

In our home, we turn our house into La Chateau de Campbell, and serve our kids as if they were at a fancy restaurant. This is probably, hands down, my kids favorite thing. I promise it beats actually taking them to a fancy restaurant—it means so much to them and, for this dinner alone, they are eager to celebrate Valentine’s Day all year long! This year, sourdough bread bowl soup is on the menu. They love anything where they get their own little personal loaf of bread!

Our menu is ever changing, but Alicia has a tradition locked in of making Gordon Ramsay’s Chicken Parm with sparkling juice and candles.

Scavenger Hunt

This is something we meant to get to over Christmas, but here it is, February already. Seems like Valentine’s Day is the perfect time to share love with those in need! (We’ll see if the kids lock it in as a tradition.)

We love watching Jimmy Darts videos, so for part of their Christmas present, we allocated them each some money to give away to someone in need. Similar to a “random acts of kindness day,” we like asking God, “Where do you want us to go, who do you want us to bless?” It’s amazing how, so often, God will lead us right to a person who needs a touch from Him. He could absolutely do it all on His own, but He invites us into the story. In the end, everyone who is a part of it is blessed! So, our plan this Valentine’s Day, is for the whole family to have a God-scavenger-hunt, paired with a little Jimmy Darts flair. Check him out if you want to see some heart-warming stories!