Forget gowns and makeup. Stay home, be cozy and have fun! Here are some creative ways to celebrate New Year's Eve at home.
So you’re not wearing gowns and tuxes and sipping champagne in crystal glasses above sweeping views of the city? No problem! Make this year’s New Year’s Eve fun with the whole family... with cozy style.
Make a Time Capsule
Popular at the turn of the century, a time capsule can be created at any time! Simply find a huge tin - the kind holiday popcorn comes in would be perfect (cleaned out of course). Have family members and friends each contribute an item they think represents the current year. Collect current newspapers, a magazine or two, your family Christmas photo, a CD, a trendy stuffed animal toy or Barbie doll, or other fun items. Have each person write a ‘note to the future’ to include. Choose a date to reopen the time capsule - a decade later, for example and make a label to place on the outside of the tin. Add collected items at midnight and toast to the new year!
Make Some Noise
Stop by a local party store and pick out noisemakers, hats, streamers, sparklers, pop bottles that contain confetti, and miscellaneous festive stuff. Make a big basket of the celebratory items for when midnight approaches. Give each partygoer a pot or pan and wooden spoon - this old-fashioned homemade noisemaker is still the most fun and effective. Hit the porch at midnight and see how many people in your neighborhood you can wake up!
Be a Memory Keeper
New Year’s Eve is the perfect time to record memories of the recent year. Have some friends over to catch up on scrapbooking. Find a pretty journal and have each guest write down their favorite memory from the year, and a goal for next year. It will be so much fun to take the journal out every year, read last year’s entries and write in the new ones. This is a fun idea for families - it will be neat over the years to see how kids’ handwriting has changed and what their favorite memories are.
Musical Family Game Festival
Have kids each invite a friend over to spend the night. Pick out 3-4 family games- Pictionary, Battleship, Jenga, Monopoly, Clue or whatever your family favorites are and set up game stations in different rooms. Set a timer for 30 minutes, play holiday music, and when the music stops, teams rotate to a different game station and pick up where the last group’s game left off. This will create a fun, memorable evening with lots of laughs. Don’t forget to stop at midnight to ring in the new year!
Celebrating New Year’s Eve doesn’t have to be done in high heels and makeup. Unplug from the world this year and create old-fashioned family fun memories that will last a lifetime.
