I have a lot of holiday traditions, but this one might just be the most beloved by my family.
About 10 years ago I made coupons that I gave to my family for Valentine's Day. I thought of what they wanted the very most, what they were begging for daily, and made a coupon for it. They each had about 10 coupons and it was a hit!
Below are some examples of the coupons I had when they were little.
I also made some for my OG Valentine. Here are some examples of the ones I made for my husband.
I'm sure you can come up with better ways to present your coupons than I did. I just printed mine off and glued them onto colored cardboard. I needed something that could withstand busy, little hands, and in the spirit of not recreating the wheel year after year, I wanted something that would last. We also made envelopes the first or second year that we have managed to keep and continue to use.
A couple of tips if you decide to make Valentine's coupons for your loved ones.
Enforce a one or two coupon per day rule. I didn't do this for the first couple of years and everyone was so excited by their coupons that I ended up doing 1,000 other things on Valentine's Day in addition to all of the other things I was doing to create all the fun and love. I was doing everyone's laundry while they were playing extra video games, and the extra soda at dinner in addition to the sweets from the day was a lot. Do yourself a favor and spread out the love...literally.
Also put an end date to it. My boys always had a few coupons they couldn't wait to use up and then there were stragglers that lived on their dressers in their rooms for entirely too long. All good things must come to an end, and if you snooze...you lose.
They have definitely changed over the years. Gone are the days of special bubble bath coupons or time to play an educational video game and now we're onto a day of unlimited app time on their phones or ordering Wingstop for dinner. I think that is what keeps it interesting, how they change over the years. I do keep an envelope full of the retired coupons. I'm not sure why exactly, but I just couldn't toss them out.
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