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Ways To Celebrate New Year’s Eve With Family

There are many ways to celebrate New Year’s Eve with family, however, because of the pandemic, not everyone is keen on going to crowded places, which is why it makes sense to throw your own party! 

Not only will it give you peace of mind, but you can also make sure that your New Year’s Eve party is the best and safest one possible. 

The New Year is coming around and we have some great suggestions on how you can celebrate it:

• Your Guide To Welcoming The New Year During The Pandemic
• Decorate Your Home for New Year’s Eve
• Where To Go for the New Year In America

First things first, choose what kind of party you want to throw. Will it be a quiet dinner party hosted by family and close friends? Or maybe you’d like to go all out and throw a New Year’s house party. 

It’s ultimately up to you how you’d like to celebrate the end of the year and the beginning of another, but it’s good to know all your options when planning the event. Here are some tips for planning the best NYE party.

Have a Slumber Party or a Dance Party 

Set up camp for the night in the living room with all of the blankets and pillows. Rent movies, play board games, and perhaps allow the kids to choose snacks that are normally off-limits. 

Have a good time figuring out who is still awake at midnight! Another entertaining idea is to throw a dance party with some New Year’s decorations. Make a music playlist of your favorites, or check out Spotify’s children’s quarantine dance party playlist. 

Have a balloon-popping countdown or make and break a Times Square ball or COVID pinata while you dance the night away.

Make a Bucket List

Next year, where would you like to travel? What are some of your family’s goals and wishes for the new year (aside from not needing a mask to go grocery shopping?) 

A printable bucket list can help you keep track of your goals. You can even add pictures to it by printing them out.

Celebrate Another Country’s New Year

Are your children too young to stay awake until midnight? Choose a country at midnight that is easier for small children to stay awake and celebrate it at that time. 

Set your watches for a new countdown. You can even create themed New Year decorations and prepare traditional cuisine from that country. 

Some countries have wonderful New Year’s traditions that you can incorporate into your own. Vasilopita (New Year’s Cake) is traditionally served at midnight in Greece. This unique cake is baked with a hidden coin or charm. 

The head of the family will cut the cake at 12 AM, and whoever gets the piece with the coin will be lucky for the rest of the year.

In Italy, old furniture is thrown out the window! By swapping and purging furniture, you can have your own “out with the old, in with the new” experience.

Make Your Own Decorations

With some construction paper, ribbon, and decorating supplies, you can make your own party hats. You can also create your own noise-makers by filling empty water bottles with rice, confetti, and glitter. 

To ring in the New Year, simply twist on the cap and shake it vigorously. Make a balloon drop for when the clock strikes twelve o’clock.

Simply blow up balloons and use tape and wrapping paper or fabric to create netting around an overhead fan.

Place all of the balloons inside the netting and let them go when you’re ready to ring in the New Year.

Take a Walk Outside

Spend some time outside to get some fresh air—and a fresh start to the new year. Ice skate, snowshoe, or go on a winter wonderland walk to see the lights.

If it snows where you are, you can even build a snow fort, make a snowman, or have a snowball fight.

Many families are making first-day hikes a tradition at state parks. Spending any amount of time outside has numerous health benefits, so why not start the year off right?

Be Together as a Family

Spend the last day and night of the year doing things that your family enjoys! Eat your favorite foods, put on your favorite pjs, read your favorite books, and go hiking on your favorite trail. 

To keep things interesting and fun, mix in some of everyone’s favorites. Are you still in a giving mood? Prepare a simple gift and participate in a white elephant exchange with your family.

Take a Trip Down Memory Lane

Take a trip down memory lane with your smartphone photos and videos from the past year before the clock strikes midnight. 

Talk about the good times and also the bad times, but remember that there was something to be gained even in the bad times. 

Can you come up with a few things to laugh about? Maybe it’s the fact that you still have toilet paper from the March scramble! Make a time capsule for the next New Year’s Eve or a time capsule for the future.

Prepare a Meal

Given that eating out on New Year’s Eve is usually more expensive, this is a good excuse to splurge and cook a family meal at home. 

Choose a dinner dish that everyone enjoys but that you don’t get to eat very often, such as steak, chili, or lobster. This meal with the family could become a New Year’s Eve tradition.

You might also consider turning appetizers into a meal. This could lead to a more relaxed dinner setting, and the kids will enjoy having the freedom to choose from a variety of foods.

Another fun New Year’s Eve dinner idea is cheese fondue. 

Everyone must sit and eat together while eating cheese fondue with bits of bread and meat. As you eat, take turns dipping your food into the cheese and reminiscing about the previous year.

Make Delectable Snacks and Desserts

Consider making cookies, toffee, or other desserts as a family and eating them all night long on New Year’s Eve. You can get even more into the New Year’s spirit by making special desserts for the occasion. 

Vasilopita, a Greek New Year’s Eve cake tradition baked with a coin hidden in the dough, is one of many New Year’s Eve desserts. Whoever receives the coin-encrusted piece of cake will have good fortune for the coming year.

Another fun dessert idea is marshmallow countdown skewers. You get to eat marshmallows as you count down to midnight because each one has two or three numbers drawn on it with edible ink.

Milk and cookie toasts are a fun idea for kid-friendly New Year’s Eve drinks. Children can participate in the New Year’s toasts by clinking their milk glasses together and eating their cookies while toasting.

Make Some Festive Cocktails and Mocktails

On New Year’s Eve, serve hot cocoa, fruity soda pop, and sparkling grape juice to the kids. You can also make strawberry-kiwi spritzers, cranberry sparklers, and peppermint drinks as mocktails. 

To make the kids feel extra special, use plastic champagne flutes or other plastic “adult” glasses. Adults can create their own specialty drinks or opt for traditional champagne.

You may consider making some fun coffee drinks with and without alcohol if you or your family are starting to feel tired.

Have a Game Night 

As you wait for the clock to reach midnight, bring out board games, card games, online games, and even video games to play. 

You could organize game tournaments or try to play every game at least once throughout the night.

Organize a Movie Night

Put in a movie that you already own or rent one that you’ve all been wanting to see. You can make a movie marathon out of it or watch a movie as part of your New Year’s Eve plans. You can eat and drink various snacks that you have prepared for the night during this time.

You can also use this time to reminisce about happier times by watching old home videos. You can make it an evening activity or have them playing all night long, depending on how many home videos you have.

Make a Photo Booth

Make a photo booth stage in a room of your house. Find a suitable backdrop, such as a wall or a background, and embellish it with holiday decorations or your written New Year resolutions. 

You could even make your own photo props by printing out some masquerade-style costume pieces.

Don’t Forget to Raise Your Glass!

Whether you’re toasting the new year with sparkling grape juice, a root beer float, or just a glass of milk, it wouldn’t be complete without a little *clink.*

Sing, make toasts, and have a good time. Everyone should have their drinks ready to toast, embrace, and wish each other a Happy New Year when the clock strikes midnight, and make sure you count down the final ten seconds before making a toast. 

You can all sing “Auld Lang Syne” after midnight, which is traditionally associated with ringing in the New Year. Now is the time to break out the homemade noise-makers and bang some pots and pans together.

If the weather permits, celebrate the new year by lighting sparklers and watching fireworks while hooping and hollering.

Reflect on and Make Resolutions for the New Year

You and your family can get together around midnight or throughout the night to reflect on where the previous year has taken each of you individually and as a family. 

After that, make and share New Year’s wishes and resolutions and what you hope to accomplish. You could even try making a resolution as a family and holding each other accountable.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does a typical New Year’s Eve dinner entail?

Black-eyed peas, greens, pork, and cornbread are some of the traditional symbolic foods in the American South, whereas other cultures believe in adding longevity noodles, dumplings, or grapes to your menu. Here are some delicious foods to eat—and some to avoid—for good luck and prosperity in the coming year.

Coins or wealth are represented by peas and beans. To make a dish using pork, ham, or sausage, use classic black-eyed peas, lentils, or beans.

Greens have a resemblance to money, particularly folded money. Prepare green, leafy vegetables in recipes to ensure good fortune in the new year.

Boiled cabbage or sauerkraut, collard greens, kale, chard, mustard greens, and turnip greens are all Southern favorites.

Because pigs root forward, pork is considered a sign of prosperity in some civilizations. This is presumably why pork or ham is included in so many Southern New Year’s Day meals.

Cornbread could symbolize gold since corn kernels are coins. Cornbread, on the other hand, is a must-have with black-eyed peas and greens so that you can quadruple your luck with these natural pairings.

Fish, grapes, and ring-shaped pastries or doughnuts are all symbols of good fortune in other civilizations. Cakes that include special treats inside work nicely, so a surprise loaf cake is ideal.

This coming New Year, as much as you might want to go all out with a seafood supper, it might not be the best choice. Some people believe that lobsters can bring bad luck since they can swim backward, which could indicate problems in the next year. 

Eating chicken, for the same reason, may bring ill luck. The birds scrape backward, and because they’re winged, your good fortune can fly away.

What is the most well-known New Year’s custom?

The most famous New Year’s Eve tradition in the United States is the midnight drop of a giant ball in New York City’s Times Square. Hundreds of millions of people watch the event, which has been held almost every year since 1907.

How do you spend New Year’s Eve with your children?

Give the youngsters something special to drink during your New Year’s toast to make them feel involved. 

For the older kids, apple juice in a big-kid cup or something sparkling, like Martinelli’s, in plastic champagne flutes! 

Have a game night, such as interactive games like Twister, Pictionary, and Charades!