New Years Eve with Children

When you think of New Years Eve you think of drinking, partying, and more drinking, right? Well, you can have just as much fun with kids at home. Here are some activities to do to make New Years Eve a fun, family holiday.

New Years Eve Buffet

For New Years Eve I cook a variety of buffet-like meals. I make nachos, pizza, pasta, garlic bread, and lots of desserts. We set all the prepared meals on the table and we all walk along the table and choose what we want to eat.

New Years drinks, kid style

My husband acts as bartender and makes root bear floats, lemonade sprite mixtures, and milkshakes. My daughter loves to order a special drink and watch dad make it for her.

Game night

My daughter loves Uno, so we play Uno for a long time. Any board game your child likes would be a lot of fun.

Make a time capsule

We make a time capsule on New Years Eve. We all think of the good times we had during the previous year and write down good memories. We also add pictures of special events that took place during the year. We also trace our daughter's hand and foot to compare next year. This is a good way to finish out the year. On New Years Day we open the time capsule that we made the year before last and remember all the good times from that year.

Change the time

In the past we have set the time ahead two hours. This way our daughter feels like she is staying up until midnight, but really is going to bed at 10 p.m. We do the countdown and blow our party toys when the clock strikes midnight.

Adult time, too

Since we changed the time two hours ahead, our daughter goes to bed at 10 pm and my husband and I still have two hours to celebrate the New Year with champagne and watching the ball drop on TV.