The days of staying up all night New Year’s Eve and sleeping all day New Year’s day have passed for me. I honestly couldn’t be happier. I will always treasure those fun memories, but a night of family just sounds wonderful.
We still want it to be a special night so I’ve gone in search of new year’s activities for kids that will make our family new year’s a night to remember.
New Year’s Activities for Kids (and their family)
Throw a Mini New Year’s Party
Just because the guest list is small doesn’t mean the party can’t be a HUGE amount of fun! Keep it a New Year’s theme and include lots of New Year’s activities for kids (and adults).
- Have everyone dress up in fancy party clothes.
- Make New Year’s noise makers and New Year’s party hats.
- Set out party food. I’m thinking a star theme… star sandwich kabobs and cinnamon pastry stars.
- Maybe even set up a family photo booth.
Make a Memory Box
New Year’s is a combination of celebrating the year that’s passed and anticipating the year to come. Doesn’t an evening of reminiscing that leaves you with a family keepsake sound like the prefect new year’s activity for kids?
- Decorate a shoe box or plastic container big enough to fill with all of your goodies.
- Fill your memory box with important family stuff (like a take out menu from your favorite restaurant). Here’s a huge list of ideas for your time capsule.
- Don’t forget to make yourself a note to open it up next year!
Cook Together
Hubby loves to make up recipes, I prefer to find recipes on Pinterest. However you like to play around in the kitchen, cooking as a family just might be a fun way to spend the evening together. This New Year’s activity for kids just might turn into a regular family event.
- Find easy to prepare, kid friendly recipes.
- Plan a lot of prep time. That way you’re not rushing. Having time to spare makes cooking way more fun.
- Turn on some music and dance around the kitchen.
- Make sure to take lots of pictures.
Enjoy a Movie Night (but make it an event!)
Family movie nights are a pretty common thing (at least around here) but for a special night like New Year’s, take it up a notch.
- Make up family movie night tickets.
- Pop some extra special popcorn. Movie theater candy popcorn looks especially yummy!
- Get into comfy cozies, bring out the blankets and dim the lights.
- Watch the movie (that means turn off your phone and in my case the computer) and be fully engaged in the movie.
- Make it a special movie. Is there a movie everyone has been dying to see? How about an old favorite from when you were a kid?
What New Year’s activities for kids do you have planned?
This post originally appeared on December 12, 2013.
I love all your suggestions! I was planning my own New Year post with similar things next week, I’ll make sure to link to yours. Since our daughter is 7, we plan a board game afternoon and a movie night.
Thanks so much for including my party hats in your site and linking back. Great article. Jodi @ http://www.meaningfulmama.com
Awesome list – I see star-shaped cookies in our (near) future. We like to play board games all evening until just before the ball drops. One year, we nearly missed it!
We live in Chicago, and we always go to the Lincoln Park Zoo (free!) and see the zoolights display, followed by hot chocolate & ice skating at Millenium Park (free if you have skates!). Super fun and family friendly. And you still feel festive being downtown on NYE. 🙂
I absolutely love the idea of a memory box or a time capsule. It’s crazy how much can change in just one year. Can’t wait to do this with my kids!
We dress up in crazy costumes and have a dance party to the “celebration” station on pandora. I’m gonna add the fun theme food you suggested and some sparklers I bought to this year’s nye! Thanks for the fun post!
Great ideas here, thanks for sharing – our boys are still very little, so I am grateful for ideas and inspiration like this!
We are going to start ‘interviewing’ the kids this year and hope that it will become a family tradition… 😉
http://hodgepodgecraft.com/2013/12/new-years-eve-a-new-family-tradition/
Wonderful post. Wonderful comments. With two littles to celebrate with this year, I loved this post! Happy New Year’s!
Thanks for mentioning my DIY photo booth and linking back!