I love to celebrate Valentine’s Day. It has always been one of my favourite holidays – and not just because my favourite colour is pink! I love to celebrate love. I’m a very loving person, I love to show affection and appreciation towards those who are important to me. Even when I was single, I was big on ‘Galentine’s’, and celebrating with my sisters or friends to show how much I loved and appreciated them.
That’s why it’s so important to me that I celebrate Valentine’s Day with my son – and any other children I have after him.
He may not even be two yet, but I want to instil the celebration of loving others in him from the get go! Growing up, I never saw my parents being affectionate with one another, and they were rarely affectionate with me, either. In my own family now, it’s totally different; I smother Jett with cuddles and kisses every single day, I tell him I love him all the time and Jonny and I are affectionate with one another in front of him too.
Seeing visible love and affection between parents or caregivers can be so important in shaping your child’s relationships – with anyone – in future. That’s why it’s important to me to celebrate Valentine’s Day with my son.
Celebrate Valentine’s Day with anyone you love!
I have said it before and I’ll say it again – you should celebrate Valentine’s Day with anyone you love, not just a romantic partner. I love my son and want to show him.
By making such a big deal out of Valentine’s Day and celebrating love, I hope he takes these memories going forwards and it makes him a more loving and affectionate person in future – with his friends, with partners and with his own future children, should he have any.
I hope that when I celebrate Valentine’s Day with Jett, he recognises the importance of showing how much you love someone – not just on one day, but every day! I hope it encourages him to be bold in showing people that he loves them, too.
In our house, we celebrate love all month long in February. I make him a love basket that is given to him on the 1st February, to help us intentionally celebrate Valentine’s Day all month long. I give him a Valentine’s card, and as he gets older, I’ll leave him love notes each day.
We read diverse books about all kinds of love – familial love, romantic love and platonic love, so that he can grow up with an understanding of all kinds of love and relationships, as well as how love can affect your life in various ways.
And of course, on Valentine’s Day, he gets a gift, just like me and his dad do.
It’s not just about the material items
It sounds like I’m just talking about showering him with gifts, right? Of course, that’s a part of it, but only very small.
As I’ve mentioned, we read a lot of books about love. But I’ve also been making sure to have intentional conversations with him about love – how I love his Daddy, how I love him, how I love our cat. We have a lot of conversations (albeit one sided at this age) about love.
I also make sure to talk about things I love doing with him. When we go for a walk, I’ll point out what I love – the sound of the birds, the sunshine, any flowers we see. I also make sure to let him know that I love being with him, doing activities with him, spending time with him. Love is such a big emotion that can be applied in so many different aspects of life. I want him to understand that when he’s older and encourage him to celebrate all the love he feels.
It’s important to feel loved
When I was a child, I don’t think I really felt loved by my parents. We didn’t cuddle, or kiss, they only said ‘love you’ at bedtime, and it just didn’t feel very affectionate – to me.
I want Jett to grow up never doubting how loved he is. I want him to always know he is loved, protected and safe. By choosing to celebrate Valentine’s Day with him, and by making such a big deal out of Valentine’s Day, I feel it will help him to understand how much we love him, and make him a more loving person in future. I want him to look book on his childhood and remember how much love filled our house, how we celebrated all the love we had. It’s important to me that he loves love, too!
I can’t control how he’ll feel in the future, or how he’ll behave, but all I can do is make intentional memories with him now and hope they contribute positively to who is and how he feels when he grows up.
Do you celebrate Valentine’s Day with your little ones? What are your family traditions?
Love from,
Florence Grace
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