With a newborn, it’s easy to get stuck in an evening routine rut. Until last week, we were spending most of our evenings after we got Jane and Walt to bed watching our favorite shows on the couch while I nursed Harry. When you’re exhausted, it’s easy to take the path of least resistance and just veg out on the couch.
We decided we were sick of watching tv and needed to switch things up a bit. Enter the At Home Date Night Jar.
I grabbed a mason jar, a handful of craft sticks, some felt-tipped pens, and we brainstormed fun activities for the two of us to do at home other than watch television. We don’t have the budget to regularly pay for a sitter, and we want to keep things fresh by having regular date nights at home. When we’re looking for inspiration, we’ll draw a stick from the jar, and we’ll do whatever activity is written on it.
We had fun brainstorming activities together. Within 15 minutes, we had run out of craft sticks, and we had a jar full of fun, creative activities for future at-home date nights. While we were brainstorming, we discovered The Dating Divas. The Dating Divas is a site dedicated to strengthening marriages by encouraging couples to keep dating throughout their marriage. Rather than re-invent the wheel, we stole a few ideas from their site and came up with a few of our own.
Here are a few of the activities in our At Home Date Night Jar:
- Visit DatingDivas.com for inspiration
- Rearrange furniture in a room
- 30 minute massage
- Wine, cheese, baguette, & watch Life is Beautiful
- Living room dance lesson (consult YouTube)
- Online house hunting
- Do a puzzle together
- Dress up, takeout, candelight meal in the dining room
- Make family photo album on Shutterfly
- Mario Cart Wii tournament
- Share 5 goals over a snack
- Watch a pre-1960 movie
- Workout DVD & smoothies
- Watch a sports game & eat stadium food (nachos, hotdogs, pretzels, etc.)
- Read a book to each other
- Set up a practical joke for the kids
- No technology, no electricity
- Picnic in the family room
- Bubble bath
- Sit outside & read together
- Write a mad lib style story together
- Build a fort for the kids
- Read the same book. Discuss after each chapter.
- Learn & play a new card game
- Make a freezer meal
- Choose new photos for frames around the house
- Try a new cocktail recipe
- Bake cookies
- Board game tournament
- Tackle a problem area of the house (garage, storage room, etc.) with a bottle of wine
- Teach each other about an historical event or current issue
- Get some peppermint foot lotion & give each other a foot massage
We decided to kick things off that night by drawing an activity out of the jar. We played a game called “Head of the Class” that I found on The Dating Divas and opened up a bottle of wine.
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| From The Dating Divas |
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| From The Dating Divas |
Both of us filled out cards that had questions like, “What is your favorite movie?” Then, we took turns asking each other the questions and guessing what the other person wrote. The first person to get 10 questions correct won. It was TOUGH!
The funniest moment of the night was answering the question, “What is your biggest fear?” The conversation went a little something like this:
Philip: What’s your biggest fear?
Me: You dying at a young age. What’s your biggest fear?
Philip: (laughing sheepishly) Me dying at a young age.
Me: What?!?! Your biggest fear is YOU dying at a young age?!
Philip: Well…(laughing)…I wouldn’t want you to be sad!
Me: (Laughing so hard that I’m crying) Great, so you want me to die first?
Philip: I guess so!
Isn’t he romantic?
Unfortunately, for me, Philip won. Before playing, we decided to make it a high stakes game by putting a 10-minute back massage with Body Shop Body Butter (love that stuff!) on the line. Philip loves back massages, so he was a happy camper when he won. He got a lot of grief for the rest of the night for wanting to kill me off first. It was fun learning more about each other and revisiting questions that we hadn’t thought about in awhile.
Do you and your sweetie still have date nights at home? Do you have any fun activities to add to our list?
We’re looking forward to our next At Home Date Night!
Ha ha, Catherine, you may end up with a few more kids playing games like that. 🙂 Dave told me once, in a similar conversation, that he didn't want to die before me because he didn't want me to be alone. Isn't that sweet?<br /><br />Unfortunately, we don't have many date nights, but we do do everything together. If we go somewhere, we go together (now with kids, of course).
Love this! Thank you for sharing. Off to make my own date jar! <br />