Valentines Games and Poems

Secret Valentines

Let someone you love know how much you care all day long, by surprising them with heart messages.

Cut out about a dozen heart shapes from pink or red paper, or cut the hearts off of inexpensive Valentine's cards. Write some little messages on each one and then hide them in unexpected places around the home (or even at the office).

Try to think of some unusual places for maximum surprise effect, such as jacket pockets, lunch boxes, briefcases, sock drawers... you get the idea!

Cupid's Arrows

From a piece of Valentines themed wrapping paper, cut a large heart shape. Onto the heart overlay target circles to create something that looks like a bullseye board. Once you have all the circles done, label point values for each area of the target. Outside of the target area would be zero, the next ring in five, the ring after that ten, and so on. At the centre of the 'board' draw a small heart having the biggest point value.

Next, make a stack of paper darts (the arrows) and flatten their noses, onto which you stick a piece of double-sided tape.

To play, place a blindfold on your 'Cupid', spin them around a few times, hand them an arrow and point them towards the heart. Cupid should then try to get the arrow as close to, or in, the centre of the heart. Give each Cupid a few tries and add up their scores each time. The winner is the Cupid with the most points.

Paper Dancing

This is a popular game for Valentines Day and is designed to get couples close - literally!

In this game, the 'dance floor' is a large area of paper spread out onto the floor. You could use Valentine's themed wrapping paper which you should lay out to be about the size of a Twister mat (which you could use as an alternative).

To play, a couple starts dancing to a romantic song, making sure that their feet stay on the paper without slipping or dancing over its edge. Every minute or so, the paper is then folded in half. Again, the couple must stay on the paper.

As the paper gets smaller and smaller, the couple get closer and closer. If they make it to the end of the song without moving off the paper, then they win.

The beauty of using wrapping paper for this game is that it can be laid down in strips, which are then easily removed one-by-one to reduce the size of the dance floor. Oh... and don't forget, you may wish to take off your shoes for this game!

The rose is red, the violet's blue
The honey's sweet, and so are you
Thou are my love and I am thine
I drew thee to my Valentine
The lot was cast and then I drew
And Fortune said it should be you.

Hershey's Valentines Relay

Dividing your party guests into teams of up to six people, each team gets a pair of mittens and a pile of Hershey's Kisses.

One at a time, one member from each team has to put on the mittens, take a Hershey's Kiss, open it and eat it.

The winning team is the first to have every member eat one Hershey's Kiss. If you have teams of unequal numbers, then unfortunately one member will have to go twice to make it even - what a shame (hee hee).

Valentines Balloon Burst

Blow up lots of regular or heart-shaped balloons, but before tying them off, push a small rolled-up love message, joke, or named prize into each one.

Spread the balloons around the floor at the party and let guests go wild trying to pop them. Once popped, they can have the treats inside.

Musical Hearts

This game is similar to musical chairs, but instead of using chairs you use hearts. Keep the chairs in mind though, because you'll be needing them for the next game.

For this game, you need a big red heart that someone can hold in both hands. You can either make one yourself or use a heart-shaped cushion, which would be ideal.

With everybody standing in a line or circle, a love song is played. Yep, you guessed it - while the music is playing you pass the heart on to the person next to you. When the music gets paused, the person then holding the heart is 'out' and they exit the game. The game continues when the music begins again and until the last person remains holding the heart. They are then declared the winner and their prize... well, that's up to you!

As a variation on this game and to make it a bit more exciting, instead of passing the heart to the person next to you, the heart could be thrown across the circle or around a room full of partygoers. You could call this one 'musical hearts catch'.

Prince Charming

This is a fun game for couples, or prospective couples, based on the glass slipper scene in Cinderella.

Arrange chairs in a circle facing inwards - make sure that the inside of the circle you've formed has got lots of space. All the girls sit in the chairs with their boy partners on their knees in front of them. The boys then take off both their partner's shoes and throw them over their shoulders into the middle of the circle.

Each boy is then blindfolded by their girl partner, and on the word 'go' the boys must retrieve their shoes (with verbal instructions from the girls) and put each one back correctly onto each foot. When both shoes are put on correctly, the girl partner can take off the boy's blindfold. The game continues until the last couple does it right.

To make this game a little more interesting, after the boys have been blindfolded, they could be stood up and spun around a few times so as to confuse their sense of direction. You can imagine what sort of mayhem that could cause!

You make me smile when I am sad
You forgive me when I make you mad
You teach me what is right and wrong
You taught me how to sing a song
There's one more thing you need to know
I love you more than words can show
There's nothing more that I can say
Just have a lovely Valentine's Day.

Even if the sun refused to shine
Even if romance ran out of rhyme
You would still have my heart
Till the end of time
You are all I need
My love, my Valentine.