Valentine's Day Party Ideas: Have an Eco-friendly Valentine's Party

Valentine's Day can be a very wasteful holiday, with all the commercial paper cards, stuffed toys, unhealthy sweets, cut flowers, and all varieties of novelties. Counteract all mass-produced junk you can handle by going green on your Valentine's Day's party. Here are some ideas.

1. Instead of buying cut flowers, you can make paper or fabric roses and flowers. A lot of scrap paper such as old magazines or textile from clothes you no longer use can be made into flowers. You can even give these homemade flowers away as favors after the party after you have used them as centerpieces and decor.

2. If you prefer to have fresh flowers for your party, consider using live flowers in pots. The small potted flowers or herbs would also do well as favors aside from being decorative items.

3. Choose to send electronic on online Valentine cards and party invitations, or create your own using recycled paper.

4. Chocolate is a traditional part of Valentine's Day, but instead of buying the regular "chocolate flavored" candies from the store, choose organic chocolates. You may also make your own chocolate desserts using locally produced cocoa and unbleached sugar, for example. Another alternative is to find a local chocolate maker and purchase your goods from them.

5. Make your party radiate with natural, red or pink soy candles.

6. For party confetti or sparkles for the tables, use a hole-punch, (heart-shaped if you can get one) to cut out colored scrap paper sheets. Used gift wrapping paper, old greeting cards, and magazine pages are good choices.

7. Serve organic, locally-produced food items and, if time permits, hand-make as most of the food as you possibly can. Some dishes can be made ahead of time and frozen to make it less stressful for you. The idea is to avoid prepacked, mass-produced foods.

8. Instead of plastic disposables, use washable tableware and utensils, washable tablecloth and tablenapkins.

9. Serve fresh fruit juices served from a punch bowl or a large container. Instead of serving beverages from cans and plastic bottles, use washable cups.

10. Cloth napkins add a decorative green touch for your Valentine's Day party. You can choose to make your own according to your motif or purchase them at an additional cost.

11. Encourage your party guests to carpool to your party to save on fuel.

12. Prepare recycling bins to contain recyclable items used during the party. Your guests should be able to recognize easily what the bins are for and these should be accessible to them without difficulty.

Love in not just on Valentine's Day

Katy would like her husband to remember Valentine's Day, but she's not holding her breath.

Well that is what Katy told herself, knowing just what Ian’s memory was like. They had been married for 20 years now, and had 2 teenage children. It was a standing joke that Katy got her birthday card in the evening of that day, presumably after a reminder from Maria to her dad. Their anniversary was even worse. The children didn’t always remember it, and so her card came a day late, after Ian had received hers first, and they usually went out to celebrate a day or two later. But she had known all that when she married him because Ian was a heart specialist, and his work came first.

Katy didn’t mind that. She was proud of all the lives her husband had saved, life was more important than anything, and thanks to him, there were people around now that wouldn’t have been without the skill and care that he had shown towards them. He had saved her own mother’s life 5 years ago, and she was still here to tell the tale.

She felt a bit fed up today

Today for some reason she felt peeved. Maria was 17, and had so many Valentine cards, it was hard to know who they were all from. She thought back to when she was 17, and it had been exciting, trying to guess who might have a crush on her. She didn’t hold her breath when the post came, there were about 6 cards for Maria, so she picked them up and put them on the side for when she came home from college later.

As she thumbed through the rest of the post, there at the bottom was a card for her. Well she knew for sure it wasn’t Ian, he would be too wrapped up in his job, it was probably Jack playing a trick on her. She smiled at the thought of her mischievous son, now 15, and a born joker.

When she opened it, the wording was brief. ” Be My Valentine” printed in bold red letters inside a heart, but nothing written, just a question mark. She decided that was because Jack couldn’t disguise the scrawl of his writing, and smiled again as she put it on the mantel piece .

Suddenly the house seemed very quiet without the familiar sounds of her family, and momentarily she felt lonely. She shook herself back to reality, knowing they would all descend on her later, like a horde of elephants, tired and hungry, and this was her time, to enjoy.

She decided to take a bath

It was while she was soaking in the bath she heard the front door open, and she was relieved to hear Ian shout. ” It’s only me.”

She wondered what had brought him home, it could be he was ill, but Ian was rarely ill. Then his face came round the bathroom door, wreathed in smiles, and he announced. ” I’m taking you out for lunch today, so put on that lovely blue dress.”

” You’re not at work?” she said in wonder.

” It’s Valentine’s day, and I knew you wouldn’t want to leave our horrors tonight, so I thought we could spend the day together, just the two of us.”

Katy stared at him in wonderment, after 20 years, she had thought she knew Ian inside out, but she didn’t. Maybe he had sent that Valentine card after all. She wasted no time in getting ready, as surprisingly Ian had a table booked for lunch, and a matinee booked at the theatre for them.

This was the result

Katy had the most wonderful day, and then she realised as she was going to sleep that night, she hadn’t sent Ian a Valentine this year. She usually left it in the study propped up by his computer, after all he knew who it was from anyway. but she had forgotten. Well there wasn’t much she could do about it now, the day was past, but what a lovely day it had been.

Ian laying beside her was also thinking. It was a shock to him when his best friend Michael, who was as much a workaholic as Ian was, had come in and said his wife had left him for another man because he was too wrapped up in his job. That had made him think.

Then for the first time in 20 years, no Valentine card from Katy, and to cap it all, he had come home to find someone had sent her a Valentine card. That had shaken him into action. He totally trusted Katy, but she was still very lovely, and he had no intention of losing her. What a lovely time they had enjoyed together. He wanted many more of them, as without Katy, his driving force, even his job didn’t seem that important. He turned over and put his arms round her, whispering. ” Please be My Valentine for ever”

Katy’s response was to snuggle sleepily into him, echoing, ” For ever!”