Nathan and I used to celebrate Valentine’s Day in a traditional way when we first started dating. We’d have a date night out somewhere, exchange small gifts and cards. Being a homebody, though, and not wanting to deal with the crowds of Valentine’s Day dates and restaurant reservations, we decided one year to make our own pizzas. We made our own dough and sauce, opened up a nice bottle of wine, and enjoyed pizza and TV. And we loved it.
We loved the chance to cook something together. Loved analyzing how we could perfect our dough. How much we loved the sauce. And enjoying a TV show together is just kind of homeostasis of our relationship. It’s our go-to together time.
That first year, we made the dough old school. It was an all day affair of kneading the dough, letting it rise, etc. It was a PROCESS. And we loved it. We didn’t have kids yet. We had nowhere to be. Nothing else we needed to be doing. And we loved spending all day getting our pizza ingredients ready for the evening.
Now we’ve upgraded and drastically reduced preparation time. I try to make the dough in our bread machine the night before our Valentine’s date. The days of having the whole day to sit around and work on making pizza dough together are long gone with two littles.
We’ve made homemade pizzas for Valentine’s Day for so many years now, and I look forward to it each and every year. I feel like we don’t have many traditions yet, and it makes me smile that we have a slightly unusual one that fits us so well. And, thankfully, it’s a tradition that can even continue this year with COVID, unlike so many other holiday traditions.
What are your Valentine’s Day traditions?
Love this tradition. I’m thinking about doing homemade pizzas this weekend with the kids. I saw someone made a heart shaped on …wondering if I can do that 😂 Travis and I try to go out to dinner sometimes around Valentine’s Day but definitely not on the 14th.
You can totally do that! Surely heart shaped crust can’t be that hard 🤔
I hope not. Either way , it’s the thought that counts and it tastes the same heart shaped or not 😂
Because Bob is who he is and HATES the pressure of gift giving, we (I) long gave up on that in our 41+ years of marriage. But most years we have shared a bit of decadent chocolate, rarely in a leisurely romantic way!!!! We share you tradition of pizza . . . but ours has always been Friday nights. It was the one time we sat in the living room, watched our favorite shows and relaxed. When the kids came, and they were old enough, we turned it into a Friday night pizza party in front of the TV with TGIF (all family friendly shows back then). When I became a WW, I thought my pizza days were over. Then we discovered 2 ingredient dough pizza and we love it more than any store bought or restaurant! Since having grandchildren, my newer tradition is making each of the kids a Valentine top or PJs or dress. The ability to love and be loved is a great gift.
We opt for Friday night movie night around here A Lot. I saw a meme recently that said something like “I thought my parents were the cool parents by doing pizza and movie night on Friday night but now after having my own kids, I realize they were just tired.” 🤣