Jesus tells us the greatest command is to love God, and the second greatest is to love others as ourselves. But what does that mean? How do we do it? Around Valentine's Day, we like to host a 5 Love Languages Treasure Hunt for our kids and their friends' families. It's a fun way to teach, remind, model, and explore different ways to communicate love. We close the party by rating our favorite ways to be loved and sharing them with those who spend the most time loving us.
Here are some of our favorite party activities for each of the five love languages:
1) Quality Time: Read a story together. One great title for this party is Enemy Pie by Derek Munson. I make individual Enemy Pies (use tart or pie crust with berry filling) and serve them for dessert.
2) Acts of Service: Prep the ingredients and crust ahead of time to make homemade pizza together. If you hide the prepped food in your vehicle ahead of time, you can send the kids out to get it, then thank them for their act of service when they bring in the groceries.
3) Words of Affirmation: While the pizza bakes, exchange cards with affirming messages, toast each other with sparkling juice, and/or decode a "message in flowers" (choose flowers you know the meanings of and use them to create a message bouquet, then give the guests a key so they can decode it)
4) Physical Affection: Have a foot spa! There are lots of ideas online for different themes. We usually make this one a chocolate foot spa. This activity makes a big impression for a small investment. ;~)
5) Gifts: Rather than a bunch of cheap party favors, I like to give our guests 1-2 pieces of individually wrapped fine quality chocolate and a couple meaningful tokens to help them remember their experience.
This year we handed out badges as we completed each activity, and at the end of the party each person taped their badges onto a chart in the order of their importance to them. It was a fun way to see which activity spoke "Love" most profoundly to each individual.
This year we also prepared a script, complete with treasure hunt clues, directions, and tips. If you would like a copy, please leave me a comment.
Love,
L
