8 Fabulous New Year’s Eve Family Traditions

Creating family traditions is important to many of us. If you are looking to create some New Year’s family traditions, I hope this post gives you some great ideas. These are fabulous New Year’s Eve family traditions that we use to ring in the New Year and are great for families!

Enjoy!

Celebrate New Year's with these great New Year's Eve family traditions. These traditions are our family's favorite way to ring in the new year!

 

 

8 Fabulous New Year’s Eve Family Traditions

 

Our New Year’s Eve family traditions all begin with… (drumroll, please)

 

The Balloon Countdown

The idea is to have a bunch of balloons and label them for each hour of the evening. You can start anytime, but we begin with 6pm. At the top of the hour, a child pops the balloon for that hour. Inside each balloon is the activity we will do that hour. Everyone chips in helping with the activities so it’s not all up to mom :)

 

6pm Activity: Fondue

The first activity we do as tradition is fondue and fingerfoods. The kids are responsible for coming up with the fingerfoods (crackers, fruit, bread, chips, etc) to go with the fondue. I typically do one cheese and one chocolate fondue, although I’ve also done a super yummy pizza fondue that we like.

During this hour I also give them any head’s up they may need for their interview (7pm activity) to give them time to think through their answers. Ex: “What is your favorite memory from this year?” may require us to review a few of the things we did or experienced. 

 

7pm Activity: Family Interviews

One of our favorite traditions is the annual video interview. I take each child individually and interview them. I ask each of them the same questions, but the questions themselves vary each year because my kids memorize them and come up with stupid answers instead of real ones. So I have to change them up!

Truly, this is one of the funniest things and at random times during the year, the kids go back and watch their interviews.

After I have interviewed them all, we all watch everyone’s interview and laugh our heads off at the answers!

Here are the questions I’ll be asking this year:

What is your name?

Age?

Grade and teacher (or favorite teacher if more than one)?

Tell me the best thing about 2018?

What was the hardest thing about this year?

What did you learn about God this year? (Or favorite thing about Him, favorite promise, something to be thankful for)?

What is something you can’t live without?

Do you want to get married one day? Who do you think you’ll marry?

If you could be any animal, what would you be?

I can’t wait to hear their answers :)

Some questions I’ve asked in years past:

What is your favorite animal?

What is one thing you hope to do in (the coming year)?

What do you want to be when you grow up?

What do you think it will be like to be an adult?

What do you appreciate about (a sibling)?

What does Mom/Dad do all day? (Especially funny to ask of younger children!)

8pm Activity: Games

8 o’clock is game hour. Some of our favorites are:

Ticket to Ride

Forbidden Island

Rory Story Cubes

Dutch Blitz

Pandemic (this one’s on our wish list!)

We also play lots of Minute to Win it games. Sometimes we work on a puzzle together and of course we’ll do some Mad Libs! Our family is mad over Mad Libs.

 

9pm Activity: Scavenger Hunt

9pm means Scavenger Hunt! We do this indoors because we live in a huge apartment complex and I can’t hide things outside; but when we are in the States, I hope we can take it to the backyard and do it with flashlights! In any case, this can be changed up to work for whatever the weather and situation permits.

This year I’m going to either do this Frozen themed Scavenger Hunt, or this Word Hunt, using rocks to spell “Happy New Year!”

After the hunt is over, we have more snacks!

 

10pm Activity: Movie/Campout

This is when some of our guys start to get tired, so 10pm is when we let everyone watch a movie and do a campout in the living room. If they fall out, we let them sleep. Whoever doesn’t fall out gets to finish the celebrations.


11pm Activity: Promise Board

The movie will probably go a little past 11pm, so we’ll pop the 11 o’clock balloon whenever the movie is over. We talk about the new year, our hopes, dreams, goals, promises God has given us, and generally encourage one another.

As we talk, we do a promise board together. This is similar to a vision board but instead of basing it on pagan beliefs such as the law of attraction, we base it on the promises of God. The Word is Truth! We cut and paste pictures and words from magazines that represent the promises, words, and scriptures God has given us for the New Year.

This board can then be framed and hung in the house as a reminder throughout the year.

 

Midnight Activity: Toast and Prayer

The big moment has arrived! We blow horns, toast each other with grape juice, sing a song or two, pray over the new year, and hit the sack!

What traditions or activities are you planning for the New Year? What are your favorite New Year’s Eve family traditions? I’d love to hear your favorites! Hoping you and yours have a Happy New Year!

 

 

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7 Comments

    1. For those with littles, you can try a “noon” years eve party where the festivities start after breakfast and you ring in the new year at noon!

  1. These are such fun ideas! Your interviews – sounds like they’re light-hearted questions? What a fun way to spend time together for this holiday. We may have everyone stay up this year, if they want. I’m not sure. And Mad Libs – we love us some Mad Libs in this house, too! :) Enjoy!!

  2. I love this!!! We will be doing a simpler version of this since my kids are very young. We’ll add more traditions as they get older!!! Here’s to a great New Year!!!

  3. Great ideas! Pretty ironic that “pandemic” was on your wish list though. I’m pretty sure this isn’t really what you were looking for. *uneasy laughter*
    Commented 12/26/2021

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