When I was a little girl, I spent every New Year’s Eve with my grandmother, so my parents could have the night off. At least that’s what everyone said, the real reason was because it was AWESOME. She had the very best traditions for bringing in the New Year with kids, and she included me in all of them!
How To Make Memories With Your Kids On New Year’s Eve
If you’re wanting to ring in the New Year with your little ones this year and are looking for a way to make it special, these are some of my favorite ways to celebrate New Year’s Eve!
1. Ring a Bell for every year!
This was my grandmother’s absolute favorite way to start the new year. At the stroke of midnight, we would ring a big bell for the new year. (And this was back in the nineties, so in 1994, I got to ring it 94 times!)
2. Make a Wish Jar.
Resolutions are completely overrated! Every year my family each writes down one wish for the new year and we put it into a jar.
Then on New Year’s Eve of the next year, we read them! Sometimes they’re crazy and silly, and sometimes they come true! It’s so fun to see what we all wanted to happen in the past year!
3. Bang Pots and Pans!
When I asked my husband if he had any NYE traditions that he loved when he was a kid he was embarrassed to tell me about it, but his parents are from Portugal, and they brought over one of their timeless traditions of going outside and banging pots and pans together on New Year’s Eve!
It was such a cool tradition that we started doing it at our house and the kids LOVE IT!
4. Forgive and forget. Wipe all their mistakes clean.
NYE is all about a fresh start, and kids need to know that. Every year, we wipe the slate completely clean.
If someone’s been told, “If you do that one more time and you get your phone taken away,” or anything like that– we wipe it completely clean on New Year’s Eve. It’s a fun way to get a fresh start!
5. Do a S’mores Toast!
I have older kids, and they always want to celebrate with their friends, so we toast with S’mores instead of champagne! The kids LOVE it.
6. New Year’s Eve Time Capsule
You can make a New Year’s eve time capsule. This is one of our favorite activities. You open it in a year and see the things you thought were important enough for last year’s time capsule!
Bottom line is, make the New Year’s Eve celebration your own. It’s so much fun to celebrate with your kids, and you can skip all the crowds if you spend at home with your family!
MORE NEW YEARS EVE FUN FROM KIDS ACTIVITIES BLOG:
What are your plans this New Years Eve? Let us know in the comments below.
