Homemade Valentine’s Day {Celebrating in Another Country}

It’s finally February! I’m not sure if anyone else says that, but I love this month. And I hope it’s not terribly cliche to say, but Valentine’s Day is my favorite. I live in South Korea and while Valentine’s Day is celebrated here, it’s not celebrated like it is back at home. There’s no Target section that’s flooded with candies and sweet home decor. There’s no Michaels with every adorable googly-eyed craft your heart desires. At this point, I would take the two aisles of Valentine’s cards and conversation hearts at Walgreens.

I’ve saved my Valentine’s cards from the last 10 years. This year I pulled out my box of cards to find one that my Grandmother wrote to me before she passed away. It’s wonderful to feel her love even though she’s not here anymore. I dug a little deeper in the box to find the card that my husband gave me on our first Valentine’s. Towards the top of the box are cute puppy dogs and penguin cards that my kiddos received last year. I’m displaying all these cards in our living room this month to remember all the special years.

Next up, I made toilet paper wind chime crafts from Pinterest and hung them in my dining room. Yes, you read that right; I hung up toilet paper rolls over the table we eat at. My daughters love them and marvel at them while they eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We might be making these every month.

During these long winter days when the air quality is bad and we can’t get outside for our daily exercise, I’ve been teaching my daughters the Cupid Shuffle. Thanks to some really talented dancers on YouTube, we’ve almost got it. We line up in our kitchen and play it on repeat until our heart rate is up and our legs are exhausted. It’s a huge boost to my self-esteem that my girls think my dancing is the best. We all get a lot of laughs.

Happy Valentine’s Day from this Dayton girl living in South Korea! I hope you can fill your heart with these homemade ideas as well as those adorable googly-eyed crafts from the big stores.