Family Date Night

by Sheila Marcelo of Care.com

Just because the calendar says February 14th is over and done with, it doesn’t mean we have to stop celebrating the spirit of Valentine’s Day! It’s still a great time to be with the people you love and a friendly reminder that maybe—just maybe—you’re overdue for a family date night.

Around Valentine’s Day, there’s a huge pressure on parents and couples to go out together, exchange cards, buy flowers, and have a candlelit dinner. There’s nothing wrong with that (I’ve written before about the importance of date night). But sometimes I think we forget about having a family date night. Just like it’s important for the two of you to get away, it’s also vital to get together!

Valentine’s Day is a great reason to plan a night out with your special someone. Ron and I celebrate it, of course, but we’ve also tried to broaden the holiday’s meaning. Last year, for example, we used Valentine’s Day as an excuse to have a “family date night” and it was one of the most memorable evenings we’d had in a while. We were traveling out of town and instead of going out for a parents-only candlelit dinner, we took our boys and their cousins out with us and had a super-fun evening! (That’s them in the picture above).

How are you going to keep “spreading the love” to everyone you care about beyond Valentine’s Day? If you’re looking for some ideas of where to begin, here are a few (budget-friendly!) ones that come to mind.



Family Dinner
Christine Koh of Boston Mamas included this idea in her great guest post on creative ways to celebrate Valentine’s Day and I wholeheartedly agree with her.

However, I’ll be the first to admit that when things get busy in the Marcelo household, we have a bad habit of “making dinner” by figuring out which restaurant we want to order from. Changing up that routine and doing some old-fashioned home cooking is a great way to create a “family date night” from scratch.

Some of my favorite times come when the four of us carve out a couple hours on the weekend, get together in the kitchen, and make a homemade meal. It’s way better on the budget and it’s also much more memorable than take-out. You can have fun trying out a new recipe, teach your kids some cooking skills, and then sit down to enjoy it all together—all it takes is an hour or two and a few fresh ingredients.

Remembering Grandparents
Think outside of your immediate family and try to include other relatives, as well. If you’re lucky to live close enough to your parents (or even your grandparents), pay them a visit with your whole family.

One of the best activities you can do with grandparents is have your children interview them about what their lives were like growing up. Ask about their favorite Valentine’s Day memories, the first time they met, their first date, or any schoolyard crushes. Those are just some discussion starters you can use to help your kids get to know them better. They’ll love hearing their history! You can even record the interviews and save them for posterity.

Game Night
Game night is a little old-fashioned, but after sitting in front of a computer all day or pounding away on my BlackBerry, it’s nice to unplug with something that’s as simple as rolling dice or flipping over cards. We love the older games like Uno and Sorry! along with the “new classics” like Cranium. The best thing about board games is you can keep coming back to them over and over (so they’re super cost-effective).

Also, Adam loves American Idol so much that we actually bought a karaoke machine—it’s been a great investment for use in our living room and in some Care.com office parties, too.

Community Service
What better way to show the love than by giving back as a family to your local community? Soup kitchens are always looking for volunteers to serve meals or stock shelves. They often can use family members of all ages as volunteers.

You could even have your kids organize a classroom or neighborhood canned food drive, too. Food banks were hit especially hard by the recession and many need our help. February also tends to be a low season for volunteering, since the holiday rush has passed by, so it’s a great time to support a local charity.