Leelanau & Traverse City Valentine's Day Ideas

Well, I relied on the power of Facebook plus our new staffer Laura to compile what is a far bigger list than I thought we’d have. If you have other ideas for folks, post them in the comments! If you want to range a little further afield, check out Celebrate Valentine’s Day the Michigan way over on Absolute Michigan.

VSA arts of Michigan-Grand Traverse Area is hosting a Valentine’s Day benefit – H’Arts & Arts for All – of food, wine and music at the Left Foot Charley Winery and Tasting Room (Grand Traverse Commons, behind Building 50) on Saturday, February 14, from 7 pm to 10 pm. It benefits bringing the arts to those with disabilities in our region and will feature wine sampling, food prepared by local culinary experts with music by Family Reunion. Tickets are $50 each and include all food and wine. Speaking of Left Foot Charley, Kim says she’s tempted by their Friday night wine & fondue dinner (Feb 13) with Special Guest Chef Eric Fritch, Owner/Chef of Patisserie Amie. There’s many more restaurants in the area on our Food & Dining page.

Speaking of Building 50, I’m told by Nan that there is a Men’s Valentine Shopping Night there on Friday from 5-9 PM. They say there will be “gorgeous fashion models help you shop” – I worry that might have unforeseen impacts. While I would prefer chocolate, Amy suggests that you might want to look at something from Tapewrangler for him. Maybe if Laura buys her husband one of these, he’ll believe in Valentine’s Day after all. If that’s not quite the right item, head to our Shopping page for all kinds of Leelanau area shops & stores. One of the places on that page is my wife Annie’s Aurora Borealis Designs, where you can get beach glass & Leland Blue jewelry.

Red Ginger in downtown TC will host their 2nd Annual Valentines Day Chocolate & Wine Event on Saturday from 2pm to 4pm. Tickets are $15 and feature a special pairing of Chocolate and Wine from local growers and chocolatiers and a chance to hang out with Mimi Wheeler of Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate in Empire and wine makers Larry Mawby (L Mawby), Brian Ulbrich (Left Foot Charley) and Lee Lutes (Black Star Farms).

If your tastes run to music, check out the Breathe Owl Breathe show at the Old Art Building in Leland on Saturday night at 8 PM (view our article). If your tastes run to music with a little harder edge, Bloodlined Calligraphy will be appearing at the American Legion Hall in Traverse City on Saturday night starting at 5.

While we’ve lost a lot of snow, The Homestead Resort still has plenty on the slopes and is offering weekend specials on lift & lodging. Visit Up North thinks maybe you should take in a movie at the State Theatre and schedule a movie stay with them. Speaking of movies, I’ll tell you that if you haven’t seen Slumdog Millionaire, you should. It’s at the Bay Theatre in Suttons Bay. Speaking of lodging, there’s a ton of folks on our lodging page who could accomodate a last minute trip north!

If your valentines include your kids or grandkids, consider “A Midsummer Night’s Faery Tale” – a full-length ballet based on a children’s book of the same name at the Dennos Museum on Saturday at 2:30 and 8 PM.If your Valentines include the totally crazy, take them to the Polar Bear Dip, one of many events at the weekend-long Empire Winterfest.

If you love chili (or ice fishing) then the Glen Arbor Winterfest is the place to be on Saturday. Tom reminds you that the New Third Coast and Cabin Fever will be playing as well! All weekend you can check out the Cherry Capital Winter Wonderfest as well for fun stuff like a bed race, music and food and even fireworks. The melted snow kind of puts the kibosh on cross-country skiing, but the lakes just might be in perfect shape for skating!

Going out is fun, but Michelle says this year they’ll have a another couple who they rarely see over, drink a little champagne, eat lots of appetizers and reflect on how blessed they are to live, raise kids, have fun in this amazing area. Ginger suggested Leland might want to think about setting out vats of hot chocolate, showing some movies on the side of the art building and ending up at a giant bonfire for the whole town on the beach. Put me down for that next year. For Peggy, who suggested some stories about folks long in love, I didn’t find any of those but I do have this Valentine from 1912 and a cool feature about Valentine’s Day from the Northern Express.