When you become a parent, so many things change. One of those many things is the way you celebrate New Year’s Eve! When your kids are itty-bitty, you may skip it altogether, after all, sleep is precious. I get it! But once your kiddos get a little older, they’ll be interested in ringing in the new year. If your kids are like mine, they want any excuse to stay up late!
Last year we hosted a “kid-friendly” New Year’s Eve party and had a blast. I’m sharing some of the things we did, as well as some new ideas you may like. My husband and I are going away this year (I surprised him with a night away as his Christmas gift), but I’ll definitely be using some of these party ideas again in the future!
A few tips to help things go smoothly:
- Don’t set your party to start before 7:00 pm. 5 hours is enough celebrating for anybody!
- Keep the kids busy. Time flies when you’re having fun… and it crawls when kids are bored!
- Safety first. I know this may be obvious, but I have to say it… a crowd of little ones doesn’t mix well with powerful fireworks or parents that have had one too many drinks. Adjust your celebrating so that it’s safe and fun for your kiddos.
Activity Balloons or Bags
I absolutely love doing this! At our party, I labeled balloons for different times of the night starting at 7:30 pm. I knew we would eat from 7-7:30, so I planned the first activity to start after that. The kids took turns popping the balloons each hour, confetti flew and they got a new idea for an activity. You could do this by making bags or a paper chain too. Some of the activities were:
- snowball fight
- New Year’s resolution party hats
- make a time capsule
- walk down memory lane with parents
- scavenger hunt for sparklers
8:00 Snowball Fight:
Snowball fighting is a fun, inexpensive way to get kids moving and excited. You can buy “fake snowballs” (I’ll link some below), use leftover wrapping paper and make “snowballs”, use real snow (if you’re lucky enough to have it), or order snowballs from your local snow cone/shaved ice stand. Many of them sell snowballs by the dozen in winter. Put the kids in teams by counting them off and then doing even numbers vs. odds, having them draw a color, etc. Set a boundary line, kinda like dodge ball and go for it! You can play inside or outside depending on the snowballs you choose!
9:00 New Year’s Resolution Party Hats:
Before the party, print this pattern on white card stock and gather up crayons, markers and pencil colors. Depending on the ages of the children, you could also include glue sticks with sequins and/or confetti, stickers or glitter. Have everything in a basket/box so it’s ready when the kids are. These are great because they’re festive and meaningful.
10:00 Make a time capsule
Time capsule kits are a thing, so I’ll link one, but I just used a few free printables. Again, I had these ready ahead of time with craft supplies. This kept the kids busy for a while. You can take this as far as you like. You could send the work home with each family, bury an actual capsule in your yard with everybody’s information (a 2 liter soda bottle works great), or let the kids share by taking turns reading aloud, depending on their ages. Kids love writing and talking about themselves!
11:00 Walk Down Memory Lane
At our house, we had the adults pick 20 photos from their phone to describe their year. Each family took turns and air-dropped their photos to the TV in our living room and shared their memories as a family. An activity like this can be done other ways too. You can make it simple and gather around an iPad, pass around a phone (depending on the group size), project it on a blank wall or side of the house, tell parents ahead and have them bring printed photos to share… etc. If you don’t think the kids in your group would enjoy this or sit still, you could pull out some board games during this time as well.
11:30 Scavenger Hunt for Sparklers
Scavenger hunts are always a blast, I don’t care how old you are! These generic scavenger hunt cards can be used to make just about any task a little more fun. You could plan to have the kids hunt for candy, a snack, etc. At our party, the “prize” was a pack of sparklers! It worked out perfectly because they found them just before midnight and made the countdown extra special!
Other ideas: board games, a dance party, cookie decorating, Pictionary, charades
Noon Year’s Eve Countdown
If your kiddos are small, I’ve heard of parents having a noon countdown. This is a cute idea and honestly could be done either on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day. It would be easy enough to modify the times on all the activities to a.m. Also, you could make the countdown at their regular bedtime and just back up the activities from then.
There are so many options and ways to include your kids in the celebration of the new year!
Thanks for stopping by, Jamie xo