New Year's Games and Party Ideas for Kids/Teens/Adults

If you are one of those people who are a non-drinker, or are looking for fun activities to do with your children on New Years Eve that do not involve alcohol, the following are some clever and creative game and activities to do at a sober New Years Eve party.

Name That Celebrity. This game may be easier for teenagers or adults. Have everyone sit on the floor in a circle. One person writes down the name of a Celebrity on a post it note, and sticks it on the forehead of the person to the left of them. When it is your turn, you go around the circle and ask yes or no questions about who your celebrity is. If you get a yes answer, you can keep going on to the next person to ask. When you get a No answer, you have to wait until it is your turn to ask again. If you get a No answer, it is the person next to you's turn to ask yes or no questions about their celeb. The last person to guess their celebrity loses. The first person to guess right gets a great prize. The next person gets a semi-great prize, the next an ok prize and so on until you get to the booby prizes which are for the last few people to guess their celebs right.

Some ideas for Great prizes would be $25 gift certificates to restaurants or the local mall. An semi-great gift would be a $15 dollar gift card. An ok gift would be a $10 dollar card and some ideas for booby prizes could be a box of crayons, a doodle pad and pen, a can of soda, a lollipop, roll of toilet paper, a dollar, etc.

The following game is great for adults or school aged children around 10 and up. The Detective game.

One person volunteers to be the Detective. He or she leaves the room or steps outside of the house until they are called back in. Meanwhile, one person is elected to be the murderer. What happens, is when the Detective is called back in, they have three guesses to find out who the murderer is before it is someone else's turn to be the Detective. While the detective is questioning people in the circle, the murderer will wink at someone. That person will let out a scream and pretend to be dead. If you are not sure if you are being winked at (As in not sure if it is you or the person next to you)then you can make up a signal before hand for this type of situation. Perhaps you can scratch your forehead with your middle finger and if you ARE the person being winked at the Detective will lick his lips or cross his legs. Try and make not so obvious if you can. There are no prizes for this game, as it is just all fun.

Pictionary: A Year In Scribbles. Played like the rules of dictionary, but the theme is important or silly well known events that happened throughout the year. Everyone writes down an event, whether it be political, news worthy, celebrity gossip, etc on a piece of paper that is placed in a hat. When it is your turn, you pull out the piece of paper and do your best to draw the event. Here is a little twist. Whatever team wins, gets to paint the face of each member of the opposite team.

A great classic one for kids, would be guess the number of jellybeans or Hershey kisses in the jar. Each person writes down their vote and their name, and at midnight the adult pulls the names and guesses out of a hat and whoever guesses closest wins the jar of candy.

I got a huge grin and had a nice long chuckle when I remembered this game. We used to play it in grade school all the time. This is geared towards kids, however it would be A LOT of fun to play with adults as well. Honey I Love You. Place chairs in a circle. Place one chair in the middle of the circle. The person in the middle stands up and walks around the circle. They pick a person to walk up to, and say"Honey, I love you, won't you PLEASE smile?". The person asked the question has to say back, without smiling "Honey I love you, but I just can't smile." The person who asked the question can do anything but touch a person to make them smile. Make faces, dance, wink, shake their butt, anything. Everyone in the circle watches and if they think the person smiled, that person has to be in the middle and ask the questions now.