I find the best way to stay on top of a holiday is to plan a whole year in advance. I will take all the inspiration I got on Valentine's day, and as soon as Valentine's Day is over I'll use it to plan for next year. That gives me the rest of the year to forget all about it. It really works like a charm.
I don't like Valentine's day. I didn't like it when I was single because I was single, but even now that I am happily married I still don't like it. All the pink and the hearts. All of the obligatory expressions of affection. The hours of waiting to be seated in a restaurant, the stuffed animals, the cheesiness, the unrealistic expectations, the doilies, the store bought valentines, etc. etc.
One of those things alone would be fine. Pink = great! Pink in addition to giant stuffed Mooses with hearts for antlers is just too much. I think it is a holiday on par with St. Patrick's Day in regards to pointlessness, but the world tries to act like it is as important as Christmas. For that reason I'm going to go out on a limb here and declare it the dumbest holiday IN THE WORLD! This is what blogging is for, you know. To make ridiculous, found-less statements, based on opinion and emotion.
At least, that is how I used to feel. These days, though, I don't mind it so much. I really like making valentines with Harrison. This year we made some for Colin too. And I love our new Valentine's traditions: Candlelit Dinner at Home with the boys followed by a Treasure Hunt!. I was actually looking forward to Valentine's Day this year. And because I want to eliminate gratuitous clicking, I'm going to recap what we've done in the past, in the hopes that it might inspire those who hate Valentines day just as much as me.
Valentines To Make:
DYNAMITE VALENTINE

- Buy smarties.
- Cut red construction paper the width of a package of smarties.
- Wrap construction paper around smarties and secure with tape or glue or chewed up gum.
- Put 3 wrapped smarties together and wrap some black electrical tape around the whole thing.
- Cut black electrical wire into several pieces about 3-4 inches long.
- Make a note to stick on top. These were made using the Sound FX Font.
- Stick the wire between the smarties, and tape your note onto the top.

I printed the note on top onto full sheets of label paper and then stuck the labels onto the side of the gum wrapper that opens, so it held everything together nicely. And if you want to do the same, here are the labels I made, complete with space at the bottom of each label for them to sign their name.
Here are the ones we made for Colin:
Here is what we did the first year:

Which idea I got from Serving Pink Lemonade. Click the link for more clue ideas. Here are the other clues I used:
I think you are getting cuter.
Last year I did a Picture Treasure Hunt. I took pictures of things as close up as I could and then printed out all the little pictures and used the pictures themselves as the clues. Like so:
This year I used QR Codes.
I found a QR Code maker (QRStuff.com) entered my clues into the generator and out popped my codes, all ready to go. Here are my clues, with answers underneath in italics. These clues are tricky, and I didn't want you to have to think more than was necessary.
Harrison kept saying it was the best night ever, though probably his favorite part was the Candlelit dinner. And it turns out that spending Valentines day with my kids is really what made me finally like the holiday. They are fun. They think the stuff we do on Valentines day is fun. How can that not rub off on me a little?