Valentine's Day

My definition of Valentine's day is a day of showing people how much we care about them. We buy gifts to show our love for our family members. Plus, at school children get to hand out Valentine cards and have a little party in the classroom.

Last year, I bought all the kids Disney character Valentine cards to hand out to their friends at school. Then I had to buy candy separately to attach to the cards. Not only does it take a long time for little ones to fill out the cards, it takes them even longer to tape the candy to the cards. Plus, the cost gets to be rather excessive. Each package of Disney themed Valentine cards cost $5, then each bad of candy is $4. That doesn't sound too bad until you multiple that by 5 kids that need the cards. We spent almost $50 just on cards and candy for the kids classmates at school last year.

This year we have to cut back anywhere we can. So, I did some searching around and it was not hard to find cheaper alternatives. Candy manufacturers now produce individually wrapped candies with to and from hearts conveniently located right on the package. I was able to buy one bag at $4 for each child and that was the extent of Valentine shopping for classmates. We saved $20 just on classmate valentines. 

For the younger children, we filled out the candy wrappers and called it good. Some of our older children got creative and made homemade valentine cards to go with the piece of candy. I have been brainstorming ideas on how to lower our cost for the school Valentines even further. I think that next year we will make homemade chocolate kisses for the candy. Then all of the children can make homemade Valentine cards for their classmates. That would only cost us $2 for the chocolate almond bark to make the chocolate kisses. 

All the children had so much fun making out valentine's for their classmates this year. It was actually quiet in my house for almost an hour while they all worked side by side on their Valentine's.