After weeks of excitement, Valentine’s arrived and the opportunity to pull out my frugal yet romantic plans for a family dinner date. I hope these give you some ideas for your next family celebration. You don’t even have to wait for an occasion because it’s too cheap you can do it everyday.
Ashton and I made the chain of paper hearts and my sister helped me hang them up. We just attached the strings on a chandelier and let them hang. Since they’re made out of recycled stuff, they cost nothing.
For the spread, do you see that luxurious tower of pastries? These are bread I bought from the village bakery. All of them cost P30. Some of the breads like the Pan de Pula aka Pan de Regla were big enough to be cut into two pieces. This also gave the layered effect. The chocolate looking ones are just chocolate crinkles which are 2 pesos each. I found some abandoned paper cups in red and white, and laid down each piece of bread on them.
My husband was serious about not getting fresh flowers and I didn’t take offense in that since Ashton and I were ready with my mom’s re-decorated plastic flowers.
Main dish was Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. I planned to put some spinach in but I read somewhere that our local kangkong is even better and tastes just the same, and it was! A bunch of kangkong costs P8. I also sprinkled Maling luncheon meat instead of the more expensive & imported Spam.
The best way to change your dining area’s ambiance is by changing the lights. We don’t normally use the yellow lights but we did on Valentine’s day. The next step is to play piano music. I like borrowing my husband’s iPhone and click on TuneIn Radio. It’s free streaming music with different channels, including relaxing ones like solo piano.
And before we ended our celebration, Azrael brought out a bottle of Chardonnay. As a blogger, he regularly gets wines for presents. We have a wine rack at home to store everything and have them ready for the next celebration.
It was a great and romantic evening that we all truly enjoyed. It only proves that even the simplest, most frugal family dinners can be the best ones.
Do you have creative ideas for family dinners at home? Share them via comments below 🙂
