At home date nights

[sweetptater]

I need ideas for at home date nights. We typically spend nights we are both home either sitting in the hot tub with a couple of drinks and talking or at the kitchen table with a couple of drinks and talking, but it's our status quo so it doesn't feel special or "date-like." I ordered a Datebox last month which was fun, but I feel like it was expensive for what you get and it was over in less than an hour. Then what? We sat at the kitchen table, had a few drinks, and talked.  I'm not sure what we could do to make it more special (or at least different) than a typical night. I almost feel like it needs a theme, or at least more than just "let's play Monopoly" you know? 


Any ideas?



PS - I'm not looking for activities to replace the drinking part. I like my wine and craft beers TYVM.

[mae0111]

Sometimes we cook together. The kids are old enough that we can set them up with a movie, and we will make filets or surf n turf.

Or we get take out from a nice Italian place nearby.

Sometimes we will play cards or something like that. Or find a good movie that we can pause and discuss.

[2chatter]

Settlers of Cataan
Scattergories

We do a kitchen dinner date with ubereats on Sunday nights - kids are banned

This has me realizing we don’t do much together. The last several months the girls have had evening games on Saturday nights and Friday nights we do family games.

[sweetptater]

I actually just went down the rabbit hole of board games after reading the post on ML. My Amazon cart is slowly filling.

I think learning some new card games would help us. We only know Euchre which is 4 players. I used to play rummy 20 years ago.

[erinshelley21]

sweetptater, there is a 2 handed Euchre! I used to play all the time with my grandma!
www.chellman.org/euchreForTwo.html

DH and I used to play Life a lot when we were dating.

This is inspiring me to initiate some at-home dates. I even gifted DH an at-home date jar for Valentine's Day a few years ago and we've used 2 out of the 24 ideas.

[campermom]

sweetptater I'm no help bc we rarely get a sitter and we rarely do anything like this, but I'm glad you mentioned it. I'm checking out datebox, anyone have a coupon code?

[ilovelucyvv]

I think it would be hard for me to have an at home date night. There are two many distractions at home, like things to be cleaned/organized. I need to be away to be fully engaged.

[186momx]

Make a dessert together then share it
Star gaze in the hot tub. If I had a hot tub I would spend each night in it and not worry about dates nights
Game night (chess, cribbage, checkers, cards)
Movie night

DH and I are horrible at this

[twinmomma]

Do you have video games you can play? I'm not a video game person at all, but we ended up getting that Super Nintendo thing that has old games on it for Christmas, and we've had a blast playing old games from our childhood together. I'm terrible, so it's always entertaining. And we can do collaborative or competitive games. It's a nice change from just watching a movie or something passive.

We also get take out from a really good restaurant in town. One of us does bedtime, the other cleans the kitchen and goes to grab the food. Then we enjoy the really nice meal in peace and quiet.

Otherwise, we're terrible at this and resort to just watching movies or TV, which for us is special because we rarely do it. We're lucky if we watch TV together once a week, other than football, so we find a show we both like and watch an episode or two of that.

[mae0111]

Cribbage. I loooove cribbage. We don't play nearly enough.

[erinshelley21]

Feb 2, 2018 12:05:22 GMT -5 186momx said:

Make a dessert together then share it
Star gaze in the hot tub. If I had a hot tub I would spend each night in it and not worry about dates nights
Game night (chess, cribbage, checkers, cards)
Movie night

DH and I are horrible at this

+1 to the bolded.

[mellym]

Great question. We don't do much these days besides board games and watch movies. We looked at the top music charts the other night and that was fun to listen to new music together and share a couple new songs we had heard on the radio.

[sweetptater]

Feb 2, 2018 11:51:13 GMT -5 campermom said:

sweetptater I'm no help bc we rarely get a sitter and we rarely do anything like this, but I'm glad you mentioned it. I'm checking out datebox, anyone have a coupon code?

To be fair, I really like the concept of datebox. I'm just the type of person that figures "This is easy! Why spend the money when I can TOTALLY do this on my own!" Oh, it's because just because I CAN do it on my own, doesn't mean I WILL do it on my own. See this thread. 

I'm actually getting one for my sister for her birthday next month. They have 3 kids (one being only 8 months) so they never get out for dates. It's perfect for her. 

[sweetptater]

Feb 2, 2018 12:09:40 GMT -5 twinmomma said:

Do you have video games you can play? I'm not a video game person at all, but we ended up getting that Super Nintendo thing that has old games on it for Christmas, and we've had a blast playing old games from our childhood together. I'm terrible, so it's always entertaining. And we can do collaborative or competitive games. It's a nice change from just watching a movie or something passive.

We also get take out from a really good restaurant in town. One of us does bedtime, the other cleans the kitchen and goes to grab the food. Then we enjoy the really nice meal in peace and quiet.

Otherwise, we're terrible at this and resort to just watching movies or TV, which for us is special because we rarely do it. We're lucky if we watch TV together once a week, other than football, so we find a show we both like and watch an episode or two of that.

We actually do have a Wii that hasn't been touched since we moved to our new house 6 years ago. Tonight may be a Rock Band night. 

I love the idea of getting good takeout. How has that never occurred to me? I always associate takeout with getting soggy salad and cold food from Applebees. 

[mustardseed2007]

You people who say you don't do much together do about 150% more than me and H.

We have started watching Brookyln 99 together. And we watched this Dart Championship on BBC America together for a while last night. We are terrible.

[2chatter]

mustardseed2007 - I always waffle on this! I think because DH is here 3 nights and gone 4 nights he’s kind of like a kid - he wants my attention when he’s here. Then the nights he’s gone the kids get my time (DDs and I read on Monday nights, DS and I read encyclopedias aloud on Tuesday nights, Wednesday night is family movie night and Thursday is open until field rentals reopen). So weirdly maybe him being gone created this feast/famine dynamic?

Spend less time at home and end up spending more time with DH? Lol

[sunbutter]

First thing that came to mind is cooking together. When we were dating, DH and I would go to Central Market on Friday nights and pick out a fish. Then have “Seafood Extravaganza.”
We don’t do organized date nights at home because like other folks, we just both get distracted. We do spend a lot of time together though because our house is small and we don’t have places to go to hide from one another.

[rere]

We are terrible at this, even more terrible since the kids are older. We try to cook together a couple of nights with drinks. Usually the kids wander through from time to time. Much more successful in the summer when we start a fire in the pit and the kids stay up at the house. Funny, I couldn't wait until I didn't need a babysitter. Now we usually hang out with them of take with us.

[librarychica]

Board games and takeout are our defaults.

Advanced date nights are wine, massages and sex.