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New Year’s Eve is a great opportunity to spend quality time with family and friends, but it can also be challenging for families with young children and teenagers. Here are some family-friendly New Years Eve activities and ideas to make sure your New Year celebrations are enjoyable for everyone.
How To Plan A Family-Friendly New Years Eve
Celebrating the past year is a special occasion shared with family and friends. This is a wonderful time for reflection and new beginnings. These tips and ideas will help you to plan the ultimate celebration with plenty of things to do with children on New Year’s Eve at home.
First, here are a few tips for planning New Year celebrations with children:
- Plan ahead in order to avoid last-minute stress – if stressed, you won’t enjoy the celebration.
- Consider spending it with friends or family who have similar aged children – they understand the different needs of celebrating with children.
- Keep it simple – there is no reason your celebrations need to be elaborate or fancy. Some of the best celebrations are those spent with just your nearest and dearest at home.
18 Unique New Year’s Eve Ideas to Celebrate at Home
Are you looking for some fun ideas to celebrate New Year’s Eve at home? Not up to braving the crowds this year with your family? Here are 18 great ideas for celebrating New Year’s Eve at home.
- Glow Sticks
Glow sticks are available for purchase from various discount stores and could be used inside a bath for some festival water fun! Alternatively, put a glow stick inside a deflated balloon. An adult can blow it up and supervise the younger children playing with it in the bath. Warning: the glow sticks contents are not nice or safe if broken open.
- Remember the year
During dinner, families can take a moment to talk about what their family has achieved this year, or what they are grateful for.
- Sparkler Photos
Sparklers are available for purchase from most shops. Take photos of your family as they write their name or age in the sky. Close supervision with children is required as the sparkler can get very hot and burn little fingers.
- Set up a DIY Photobooth
Parents can raid their children’s dress up box or visit their local discount shop or Vinnies/Salvation Army op shop and grab some awesome items like fake moustaches, feather boas or more for a fun photo booth experience. Set it up with an interesting backdrop and consider getting an instant camera. They’re available for purchase second hand on FaceBook Marketplace or Gumtree.
- Set the clocks back and celebrate New Year’s at 8pm
Families can have an evening celebration with their young children by cheekily
winding the clocks back by 4 hours and celebrating New Year’s at 8pm.
- Toast
Use some plastic champagne or tumbler glasses and fill it with some lemonade or sparkling mineral water and make a toast to the wonderful year had!
- Make New Year’s Resolutions
This fun family activity can take place before midnight. Parents can help their children to come up with a goal, an inspiration mantra or kind words for every other person in the family. Alternatively, please feel free to talk about what were your favourite parts and what you learnt from the past year. This idea can be achieved by using a jar to place a note when something wonderful happens and/or achievement is made throughout the past year. Families can read these aloud on New Year’s Eve.
- Neighbourhood party
Consider throwing a street party with other families in your area and enjoy the fun!
- Hourly Countdown
Parents can prepare multiple boxes ahead of time and let their children open a different package every hour to countdown the hours to the New Year.
- Family Board Games
Have a blast and make it all about family, being together and celebrating each other through board games. Favourites include but not limited to: 5- second rule, Scattergories, Throw the Burrito. For the older children, the family edition of Cards Against Humanity is a winner!
- Make Pizzas
Children can help make and then eat homemade pizzas as part of their New Year’s Eve festival fare!
- Have a “Dessert Off”
This fun family-friendly activity is popular as the children get older. Everyone picks a dessert to cook and the tastiest dessert wins! Desserts are the perfect choice for a “cook off” because they can be made ahead of time. Other ideas are “Pizza offs” where the children choose their toppings and everyone judges each pizza.
- Family Disco
Turn down the lights, put on some music and dance like no-one is watching! Parents can utilise Spotify or iTunes apps which would have lots of New Year playlists. Alternatively, feel free to create one based on recent movies (Frozen anyone?!).
- Television
As a family, watch either Brisbane’s Southbank fireworks or the Sydney’s New Year’s Eve celebrations on television.
- Have a movie marathon
Choose a family-friendly movie series like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings or Ghostbusters and watch it for as long as you’d like!
- Host a family New Year’s Party
Like at-home younger children’s birthday parties, complete with games like Pin the Tail on the Donkey, and Pass the Parcel, the family will guarantee to have a blast! Finish off the night with a cake to celebrate the New Year’s.
- Challenge the teenagers on technology
It’s a fun challenge to bond over something your teenagers are interested in. Whether it is Fortnite or Mario Cart, families could alternative technology with board games too. Take it to the next level and have a game off played over the night to decide the ultimate grand champion!
- Give a New Year’s nod to your ancestors
Explore your heritage with your children and discover some of the New Year’s traditions from around the world. The family can visit their local library a few days before New Years and borrow picture books on the subject matter for an enjoyable experience.
Tips For New Years Eve With Toddlers & Babies
When you are celebrating New Year’s Eve with a baby or a toddler, your options tend to be a little more limited since you want to avoid a difficult, sleepless night. And if you are still nursing, you will likely not be wanting to overindulge too much either.
A quiet night at home celebrating with your close friends or family can be a great option when you have very young children. This means you can keep your usual routine while still making the night special.
Did you know?! If you want a super awesome and very adorable calendar for your children, download my 2023 Year of the Dinosaur monthly calendar.
Click thru to find What can you do on New Year’s Day in Moreton Bay City with your family. Raise your glass to a better 2023 with these ideas.
Need ideas for your New Year Eve’s menu? Check these out:
- New Year Eve’s party food ideas
- New Year Eve’s desserts ideas
- New Year Eve’s bring a plate party ideas
Happy New Year!
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