Use these Tips to Throw A Successful New Year’s Eve Party for the Whole Family

10 Tips for Throwing a New Year’s Eve Family Party

This will be the first New Year’s Eve that we won’t be throwing a party. With our recent move to Connecticut, still meeting new friends, a new house under remodeling, we felt like this year we needed to pass on throwing a New Year’s Eve party. We are sad. But hope next year we will be back at it! When we lived in Georgia we threw New Year’s Eve parties every year for about six years. It was always such a blast, and we loved ringing in the new year with our children and friends!

Through the years we learned a few things about how to throw a successful New year’s Eve Party for the whole family. To keep the entertainment alive, tired kids happy and parents enjoying the party the whole entire night long.

10 Tips for Throwing a New Year’s Eve Family Party

• Keep your Christmas/holiday decorations up and then just add streamers and balloons and the number of the year you are celebrating. This is an easy way to quickly decorate for a New Year Eve party without putting a lot of effort into it. Then hold on to your decorations to reuse next year.
• Set up a Photo Booth with props. If people are going to a NYE party, they will want to take pictures and a photo booth is the perfect place to capture the moment! I also like to set up the photo booth in a separate room from where the general party is being held so people aren’t embarrassed or shy to snap a picture with a silly hat on.

• Ask guest families to bring food to share. This will help take a lot of work off the host. I always told families that I would provide the drinks and that they needed to provide the food. I also had it so families had to bring something savory and sweet. And requested to bring a hot appetizer dish and no one was allowed to bring chips. That helps cut back on a massive amount of chips (kind of!) and there was more hearty hot appetizers.
• Have a drink station. Guests like to drink at parties! Well, we do non-alcoholic drinks but regardless of what kind, make sure you have a plentiful drink station. And also a drink station for the children, so they don’t get into the adult drinks. Have cups with sharpies so guests write their names on the disposable cup. That will keep the mess down. We like to set up an Italian soda drink station (DIY with printable). That is always popular and guests love to mix drinks all night long.

• If you are planning to have a lot of little kids at the party make sure to have a play area that is separate from the adult area. Have older children watch the younger or teenagers keep an eye. Or rotate adults to watching children in the play area. I wouldn’t say keep them completely separate, but have an area where the kids know they can make a mess, play with toys and just be loud and silly. Also, move any valuable or breakable items up and away from children’s reach.
• Welcome guests to dress their babies in their pajamas, or bring them. I would set up a sleeping area, away from the party for small babies so parents could put their baby asleep for the night (until they left). And then I set up air mattresses in the play area so children could fall asleep if their little bodies couldn’t handle staying up until midnight. This kept the crying down from tired babies, and usually by the end of the night we always had a few kids passed out on the air mattress.
• My next tip is to start a kid-friendly movie at about 10 p.m. This will be a second wind of the party and will start to calm the children down after all their playing. Some of the little ones will pass out or at least dose off on the air mattress you provided. The movie will end right before the ball drops!
• If you have the backyard or outdoor area, set up a outdoor fire pit. This is a great way to keep the party spread out (if you have a large group) or add another activity to the party. You can include a s’more station or a hot chocolate station and take some of the party outdoors by staying warm next to the fire.

• Keep your party alive with fun adult games throughout the evening. I would always like to provide a “Best of the Year” game which was all the main big news that had happened in the past year. Also, a huge sign wall that guests could write their best of moments in the past year or goals for the new year. We did an adult dance party every year. This was always a big hit with the guys. Karaoke is also a fun activity. Minute to win it games are fun especially with teenagers.
• End the party with fireworks, party noises and sparklers! This is a fun way to end the party (guests usually have their coats on) and ring in the new year!

Happy New Year! Hope these 10 Tips for Throwing a New Year’s Eve Family Party helps make your party a success!