Decorating tips, food, New Year themes, games, activity ideas, music, & party ideas for a fun & safe New Year's Eve for kids & pre-teens. Busy kids means happy parents.
Kids old enough to stay up for midnight New Year's Eve want to have fun like the older children and adults. With planning ahead, a safe New Year's party can be held for kids or families with children with easy ideas and activities.
New Year's Eve Decorating and Set-up Tips for Kids
Allow kids to have a special area to decorate with streamers, balloons, and pre-made decorations.
Get washable markers and a tablecloth for the kids to decorate.
Make children aware of balloon choke hazards and have older kids blow up balloons.
Consider covering furniture in the kids area with sheets.
Set up the area with kid-safe DVDs (Monster's Inc., The Incredibles, and classic Gilligan's Island perhaps), games, and interactive toys. Have lots of pillows and blankets for sleepy kids.
Keep Pre-teens Happy on New Year's Eve
Somewhat older kids like video games, charades and Pictionary, and a dance floor with cool music.
Provide lots of snacks and sodas for this age, and something substantial like chicken hot dogs or cheese and crackers.
Good DVDs for this age will help in the later hours.
Family-Friendly Foods and Drinks for New Year's Eve
With kids around, alcoholic beverages might be avoided or limited.
As an alternative to champagne, pick up bottles of sparkling cider, make a festive punch, and have sodas, sparkling water, and juices on-hand.
Offer a permanent marker for each guest to use to label their plastic cups.
Snacks which please most guests will be cheeses, meats, small sandwich rolls, bite-sized cookies, chocolate anything, chips with dip, and other finger foods. Offer low fat snacks such as fresh veggies and a light dip.
Leave snacks in various areas, but be careful about toddler choking hazards, if little ones will be at the party.
Good New Years Eve Party Themes for Kids, Pre-Teens, Girls, and Boys
For Kids:
A Safari Party: Use animal party goods, animal cookies, have a scavenger hunt, and watch an animal themed movie.
A Girly-Girl Party: Pick pink as the theme. Decorate in the most feminine ways, have girls wear fancy party dresses, play girly-games like one of Hasbro's pink games (see Pink Twister below), and have a pillow fight.
Boys Pirate Party: Pirate themed items are easy to find. Have a treasure hunt with gold (chocolate) coins, watch a vintage pirate flick, wear pirate garb, and eat fish and chips.
Encourage saying "aarrr" a lot.
For Pre-Teens:
Raise the age level of the pirate themed ideas above. Make a harder treasure hunt, for instance. have pirate costumes on-hand for trying on.
Have a disco party: Pull out the BeeGees records, the mirror ball, and the dance floor. This age can entertain themselves, so don't work too hard on planning activities. Simply have some games, music, and movies on-hand.
Girls might like a glamour party: Provide or ask guests to bring make-up to try, tiaras and jewelry to wear, fancy dresses and scarves to swish, and elegant snacks to try. Make this a princess party and play "The Princess Diaries" move, I & II.
Boys, of course, would love a video game all nighter. Have kids bring game systems. Add some beanbag chairs and pillows and a party is born.
Have a secure place for coats and purses to keep them safe from children and to keep children safe from medications and such.
New Year's Eve is a time for celebration and renewal. For more ideas, read Best New Year's Eve Party Themes. Feel free to invite families with children to a New Year's Eve party or have a party just for kids so weary parents can have a romantic night out on their own.
The copyright of the article Kids Fun New Years Eve Party Ideas 2009 in Holiday Entertaining is owned by Janienne Jennrich. Permission to republish Kids Fun New Years Eve Party Ideas 2009 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.