Valentine’s Day Traditions: The Magic of Self-Love Jars
In our house, we have a ton of traditions. I feel like it’s my duty as a mama to make mama magic happen for my kids. Valentine’s Day is such an off the cuff holiday that it’s so easy to slide by it without much fuss. I prefer to give it a little meaning. So, each year I choose a theme and march forward with it. Kid struggle just as much as we adults do, and I feel like I can curb and teach and push them in a certain direction with different ideas. This year, our girls are getting to that middle school glory of mean girl bullying that makes dressing and eating something that they actually have to worry about. As I watch them struggle with their weight, their identity, and their worthiness, my mama heart always gets a bit heavy. Because I know. I know how it feels to be pressured, beat up, and pushed down. And more so than that, my mama heart wants to put them in a bubble and put them in my pocket so that I can protect them.
Normally, on February 1st, I place a giant cut out of a heart on each door that says “Things I Love About You”. Every day in February I add a new smaller heart with one thing I love about them. I’ve done this since my kids were old enough to understand. This year, how mom feels about them isn’t really relevant much, and so I changed it up. This year, I purchased six jars with pop lids, chalkboard labels, and white chalk markers instead. Writing each of our names on them, I placed them on the dining room table in their assigned seats. (Yes, we have assigned seats. Have you ever tried to have a nice quiet dinner after two kids body slammed each other trying to get to a certain spot? If not, then call yourself blessed. My kids are not so graceful.)
Family dinner at our house is special and we try to make it happen every single night the kids are at our house instead of their other parents. It’s a time to complain, it’s a time to vent, it’s a time to celebrate, it’s a time to detail out every single detail of their day, and it’s a time to share. No phones or electronics of any kind can enter the dining room at family dinner, and therefore, it’s, also, a time of complete presence from all parties at the table. Sometimes, there’s an extra child or three at the table, and they join in with their bits and pieces of life. They usually tiptoe around dad and I because they don’t know the cardinal rule at the dinner table. It’s safe. This means you can say anything and you won’t get in trouble. (Though, if Eric catches you eating with your hands when you should be using a fork, you will, in fact, get in loads of trouble. And that includes me too.)
So with each family dinner, we take a sheet of scrap paper and a pencil to write what we love about ourselves.
Because that’s just it isn’t it? When your kids are little, they need your affirmation. So the hearts on the door just made sense every year. But as they grow out of that phase and into the peer affirmation stage, it gets harder and harder to love yourself instead of conforming to the ins and outs of what the world requests you to be. So we mold and we change and we forget about what we love about ourselves and start to spend our days hating all the little things that make up who we are, toss them out, and with it our courage to love who we are made to be.
I didn’t want my kids to be my age when they finally learn to shut that demon out. So, for now, we start here. With these jars. And we write often one little thing we love about ourselves, pop it in the jar, and wait. One day, when they need it most, we will reopen the jar to read each thing. As a reminder of what makes us who we are and why who we are deserves to be loved already.
I hope it brings goodness. It will definitely bring tears. But most of all, I hope it fills them with love. Isn’t that what Valentine’s Day is all about?