One of my least favorite days of college was my senior year of college on Valentine's Day. Anyone who has been in Knoxville in the winter knows that it is COLD. Mind you, I grew up in the mountains of WV. We would get feet of snow at a time and single digit temps were the norm. But, in Knoxville, we would get 37 degree rain. As a college kid, this meant that you would be so cold, you would have to take a hot shower to warm up because that cold rain had soaked all the way down to your soul. I ran into my dorm, soaked, freezing, and the lobby of the sorority dorm was flooded with red roses. Everywhere. You couldn't even see the front desk. I just remember being really annoyed. It was cold and rainy and there were thousands of dollars of roses (THAT WERE GOING TO BE DEAD IN A WEEK) in the lobby. That was the beginning of my deep feeling of BLECH toward Valentine's Day.
For a while, I would wear black just to be a pain on the 14th. I had a wonderful husband who loved me well and he would have been in SERIOUS trouble if he would have spent that much on flowers for me for a holiday. (I mean, buy me a purse or some food, if you're dying to spend money on me. And it had better not be that box of mystery chocolates. Because I'm going to gag if I bite into that one with the cherry cream. Make it that heart shaped box of chickfila nuggets!)
In Summersville, the most WONDERFUL bakery was there and they made small, heart shaped cakes for Valentine's Day for $6. We are talking, their cakes are wedding cakes all of the time. (When I was pregnant with Brooks and on bed rest, I had a mental breakdown because I wanted a Creative Cake for Nina's birthday because she deserved a really good cake for putting up with a mother unable to get off the couch for 3 months, and I didn't think they were going to be able to make it. Seriously, lost my mind over this cake.) My friend from Beckley has driven to Summersville just to get a Creative Cake. It's just the best. AND FOR SIX DOLLARS?! SIGN ME UP, ROSIE!!
Soon after we moved, Nina fell in LOVE with baking. She asked months ago if we could bake our Valentine's Day cake. So, we ordered the heart shaped pan and were off to the races!
Since Lee nor I ever bought into the Valentine's Day scene (and the CROWDS. My introvert dies a little at the thought of going out on Valentine's Day), we always just did a pot of soup and the Creative Cake and watched a movie. (Except for that one time, we drove to Myrtle Beach in a blizzard to run a half marathon when I was 6 weeks pregnant. *Side eye*)
Nina, however, loves all things celebratory. (I am not lying to you that she sent significant amount of time this morning planning Halloween for this year.) So, since we have always done low-key Valentine's, we're going to combine it this year with her desire to celebrate. We are officially starting FAMILYTINE'S DAY!
We have big plans for all things heart shaped that day to have the ultimate family day! We're doing heart shaped waffles for breakfast, making a heart shaped cake (We can't agree on the flavor), making soft pretzels shaped like hearts (hopefully... I've never actually made them) with a fondue pot of cheese dip, and making heart shaped pizzas for dinner. We've chosen a new movie for us to watch (the Trolls movie), and plan on cuddling and having fun doing nothing.
**To reduce time in the kitchen and increase time together as a family, I'm going to do a lot of it in advance. We'll make the cake and pizza dough on Monday. Also, we'll mix the dry ingredients for waffles and separate the eggs this weekend.
There are tons of ideas for things like this on Pinterest and I highly recommend pumping up Familytine's Day with your crew. We're pretty excited here!
Go all out! Let you kids know they don't have to hate this day because they don't have a significant other and that love doesn't have to be romantic. Make a big deal out of how much you love them and make sure you tell them more than once how loved they are by the King.
Now, to decide on the flavor of cake...
