Ahh Valentine’s Day. The day that conjures up images of chubby little angels shooting pointy arrows into everyone it sees. We see hearts swirling around the heads of cartoon characters while the greeting card industry booms. The sickeningly sweet commercials, posters, articles, Facebook updates, tweets, videos, can be a wee bit overwhelming when you do not have the soulful eyes of a lover to gaze into. So what do you do? Well, personally, I ignore all the jewelry stores and flower shops and focus on my Valentine’s Day traditions with my family. For as many years as I can remember I have been taking my boys to Boston Pizza for heart-shaped pizza every Valentine’s Day. If you have ever gone, you will know that it can be a bit of a madhouse, so we tend to arrive early for the supper hour. This one simple tradition has allowed me to concentrate on loving my sons rather than sulking over my marital status. This got me to thinking, what other great alternatives are there to Valentine’s Day than dating when you are single? I’ve come up with the list below:

1. Spend time with the ones you love – Valentine’s Day need not be about a partner, it is about love – love for your family, your friends, even your fur babies.

2. Grocery shop – What better day to grocery shop than on Valentine’s Day? I don’t know too many couples who consider a trip for food stuffs to be a romantic outing, so no mushy stuff to see there!

3. Take your kids swimming – Again, not a very popular Valentine Day date place – the pool should be empty and if your kids love water as much as mine do, hugs and kisses will abound aplenty.

4. One of the people I enjoy following on Twitter (@jewpoker) tells me that he used to gather up his single friends and head to the movie theatre for a double header! I actually love the movies so this idea is very attractive to me.

5. Choose to celebrate Valentine’s Day with your kidlets – get dressed up and have a favorite meal, a friend of mine on Facebook tells me that she used to give roses to her daughters and chocolate to her sons to commemorate this day of love.

6. And if you don’t have your kidlets for Valentine’s Day, then show yourself some love, hit the spa, the gym, the book store or draw a warm bath, a glass of wine and a good book at home.

Whether you choose to celebrate, ignore or wallow, Valentine’s Day need not be the hyped up commercial venture it has developed into. I prefer to have it be a quiet reminder to tell me how lucky I am to have the love of my family.