Ten New Year’s Eve Ideas Your Family Can Start
Celebrating New Year’s Eve was always a family affair growing up. If you’d like to start some of your own meaningful family New Year’s Eve traditions, this post is for you! As always, no pressure to do them all. Just pick your favorites for a fun New Year’s Eve together!
1. Let kids stay up as late as they want
New Year’s Eve was the only night of the year that we as children got to stay up as late as we wanted. Some of you may be cringing at this idea, so I’m not saying it’s a must. But… usually, there are very little commitments on New Year’s Days, so we were always able to sleep in after a long (or short) night.
2. Have a buffet of fun treats and snacks
Since New Year’s Eve is a long celebration, it’s fun to have a variety of appetizers, treats, and other snacks to munch out throughout the night. We don’t do a formal dinner that night, because it’s fun to eat foods we don’t normally get. For kids, let them pick out a few treats or snacks you usually don’t buy.
Some of our favorite treats include pizza pockets, mozzarella sticks, vanilla wafers, jalapeno poppers, popcorn, crackers and cheese, and veggie/fruit platter.
3. Play games
Another fun New Year’s Eve tradition is playing games as a family. We would usually get a new game for Christmas, so New Year’s Eve was the perfect night to play them all!
4. Bang pots and pans at midnight
Want to know how to ring in the New Year with a bang? Try running up and down the streets at midnight with pots and pans in hand. There’s no need for fancy noisemakers when you can pull out pots and wooden spoons from the kitchen. To this day and no matter how old we get, we still run outside at midnight and bang pots and pans and scream, “Happy New Year!”
5. Toast to the New Year
Have a family-friendly toast with non-alcoholic sparkling drinks, such as Martinelli’s.
6. Have a special treat or game for each hour to make the time go by quicker.
Make the night extra fun for little ones by having a special treat, snack, or game for them to open each hour. We did this a few years ago and the kids loved it! And seriously, the time passed by so quickly.
7. Watch family videos from the year
Chances are you have probably taken a million family videos from the year. Compile them before New Year’s Eve and take some time to watch them. We love watching all our family videos from the year and even year’s past. It will be so fun to see how everyone has grown and it’s a great way to look back on your year.
8. Take a family New Year’s photo
Taking a New Year’s family photo is one of our favorite traditions! In fact, my family usually gets really into it and we all wear black and silver or gold for our New Year’s Eve party.
9. Deliver New Year’s gifts to neighbors
Some years we give New Year’s gifts to our neighbors instead of Christmas gifts.
10. Set New Year’s family goals
We keep a binder where we update our goals and reminisce on the last year’s goals. If we’re really good, we pull them out monthly or at least a few times in the year to check our progress.