If you’ve been following me on Instagram for a while, you probably know that Josh and I enjoy date nights at home! Since Trevor was born over 3 years ago, we have never hired a babysitter! Every time our parents offer to watch Trevor, we happily agree. But because our family is far away, we have had to be creative to have date nights at home! For a while, we were buying date box dates (now called The Happily). They were perfect because they sent the date idea directly to us with most of the things we needed to make it happen! But through that year of date boxes, I have learned a few things about what makes a great at-home date!

Things you need for every Date Night at home

There are a few things that really make each date night at home feel special. First, make a snack or new treat for you both to enjoy! Try to make kettle corn for the first time on the stove. Cook up some candied almonds. Bake some yummy cookies together! Or make that Pinterest recipe you’ve been craving for months! Doing something in the kitchen together that you will both enjoy later makes the date that much more fun!

Then, make some special drinks! Enjoy your favorite sparkling water, put some cucumber and mint into a water pitcher, or shake up an espresso martini! You can even have themed nights like fiesta date night complete with margaritas or sangria. Do something new, and it’ll feel like a special date night at home!

Third, don’t forget to set the stage or make it special! Light your favorite candles, use the serving trays that you never use, or dress up a bit to make it feel special! I always try to do my hair and light makeup even if I am wearing yoga pants because it makes me feel more put together. If I’m feeling extra excited I may even wear earrings even though I NEVER wear them! Setting the state isn’t complete without some calming and romantic music playing in the background that you both love. We love Michael Buble, summertime country music, or old school romantic songs! Josh’s favorite is to ask google to play restaurant sounds (music with a low roar of people talking) when we eat dinner together, which makes it really feel like a real night out!

Our Favorite Go-To Dates

Here are our favorite go-to date nights at home! Some are simple, and some are harder to make happen. But all of them are really fun ways to reconnect, unplug, refocus on what matters.

Game Night

We LOVE games. I mean, LOVE THEM! We have tons of favorites that are two players and most of them you can buy on Amazon so they will come directly to your home! You can also order board games on Target’s website and pick them up the same day if you don’t want to wait! Some of our favorites include Chickapig, Azul, Codenames Duet, Rivals for Catan (2-player card game!), Pandemic, and Rummicube! We also LOVE our Nintendo Switch especially Mario Cart and Mario Party! As you can see, this one idea can give you over a week’s worth of dates that can be used over and over again! But don’t forget the snacks and drinks! Maybe make an espresso martini or Dirty Shirley (my fav!) with some chips and salsa to complete this date night!

Guy’s Grocery Games

This is a definite favorite of ours! If you haven’t watched Guy’s Grocery Games, go do that NOW! It’s the best cooking challenge show there is! We love it because it’s positive and hilarious. To change it to be an at-home game, you can host a dinner cook-off! Using what you already have in the pantry, create a luxury dinner! To make it harder, you could require the use of an odd ingredient, like cheese puffs, canned tuna, or that one thing that has been in your pantry all year that you forget why you bought it! You could also have one person make dinner and another person makes dessert. Or you could work together to try and create something out of only ingredients that start with a specific letter! No matter what game you choose, our rules are that we can’t use recipes or search online for how to cook something! So far, we have LOVED this because it gets us in the kitchen together and usually we create something delicious!

Spa Night

Josh and I set up our living room with candles and spa music on YouTube (here’s our favorite video!). We either make cucumber water in a pitcher or enjoy champagne (or sparkling apple cider when pregnant!) to create the feeling of a real spa. Then we give each other massages, do facials, paint nails, etc. It really depends on what we feel we need! We pretend to be real massage therapists with massage oils, which you can buy off of Amazon in various scents! Sometimes, I will set up a bath with bath salts! Sometimes it’s only foot massages. Add in comfy robes, and it’s a complete date!

Poker Night

Learn how to or challenge each other to a night of Poker! Use poker chips or anything around your home to make it more exciting! You could even use the snacks you have laying around the house to bet with. Our favorite game to play is blackjack because it’s fast but fun. Complete the date with some of your favorite music in the background, your favorite drink, and a fun snack! We love to make kettle corn on the stove together before starting the game!

Paint Night

Using acrylic paints, some brushes, and two small canvases you can create a great paint date night at home! The best part is that you can buy all of these things off of Amazon to be delivered or pick them up at a local Michaels with their order pick up!  I know Paint Nite right now is offering online classes, but there are also a TON of free YouTube tutorials that you can follow along with! This is the one we did, and it was quirky and fun! No date is complete without a quick snack and drink, but we love something quick and easy for this date, like veggies and hummus or cheese and crackers with wine!

Build a fort and rent a movie

You’ve probably thought of this idea, but seriously its the best. Take all of the cushions off of your couch, make it super comfy, work together to create the fort, and then enjoy your favorite drinks and snacks while watching a new movie! Right now on Amazon Prime, you can rent NEW MOVIES that should have been in theaters! We recently watched I Still Believe and it was amazing!! Highly recommended!

Wikipedia Night

This date could be as quick as a few minutes! All you need are your phones! Start by picking a topic to END your search on. For example, say we want to end up on the page about Martin Luther King Jr. Then, you each pick a topic for the other person to start on. So I would pick something like popsicles for Josh to start on and Josh picks clouds for me to start on. Then, the race begins. ONLY by clicking on the links on each page, you have to race your significant other to the Martin Luther King Jr. page. It’s really fun to go back through and recounting how you got to the page from your starting place at the end of each round. Keep a tally of who wins and race to 10 wins!

Beer Pong Date

Remember back in college when you two dominated the pong table?! Josh and I love to play this game again on our kitchen table! I can’t drink beer anymore, so we just fill the cups with water or mixed drinks instead. Don’t forget the LOUD music to make it feel like you are back at that party together! End the night with some late-night pizza, french fries, wings, or pokey sticks, and you may just feel like you are traveling back in time!

Escape the Room

This is probably the most challenging date night to create on your own, but it’s so much fun! You can each create an escape the room puzzle for the other person by creating lots of clues and hiding them around the room. Start with the end in mind so that the puzzles all work together! It may take a while to create, but it’s super fun to watch them try to escape! Another option is to buy an escape the room from Amazon! I know there are a ton of options for board games on there, and escape the rooms are the perfect way to work together and grow your relationship together!

Learn a new Dance Date

Youtube has TONS of fun tutorials to learn new dances together! Not only is this a fun way to get moving during this quarantine time, but it’s also a date that makes you feel super connected to your loved one! I highly recommend learning swing dancing or some fun, fast-paced dance because it really brings out the laughter as you try to fly through the dance moves! Finish the date with a warm cookie out of the oven and some champagne, and it’s complete!

I’m always looking for new ideas…

Thank you so much for reading my favorite date nights at home! So tell me below!! Did you do one of the dates above?!! What did you think of these date nights at home?! What are your go-to date nights?! Josh and I would LOVE to use your date night ideas for our next date night as well!

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