10 Ideas for a Fun, Kid-Filled New Year’s Eve Party!

1)  Start the Celebration at 6pm (that’s 9pm EST)!

2)  Give your child a camera and see what the New Year will look like from their eyes! It’s twice the fun when you re-visit those images at the end of the year to see what they capture a full year later.

3) Instead of fireworks, try making your own confetti!

4) According to Cookie Magazine, while we wait for the ball to drop in New York City, Spaniards wait for the clock-tower bell in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol to strike midnight. It is a tradition to eat one grape with each ring. Toast the kids with sparkling cider, and eat 12 grapes each to bring luck in the coming year.

 5) Verbal resolutions? This year make a family time capsule and fill it with your goals and aspirations as a family for the New Year. See what you have accomplished by Jan 1, 2011.

6) New Years Eve is all about the hat! Go to your local craft store and buy markers, gel pens, feathers, and other adornments to embellish your own hat. Then have a contest for the funniest, most creative, most eccentric.

7) Make Music! What kid doesn’t love a noisemaker? Use household items such as empty plastic pop bottles with dry beans or an oatmeal container. Cover them with construction paper, wrapping paper, stickers etc. Tie several strands of curling ribbon to the top.

Create Your Own 2010 Family book. Take a picture of everyone in your family and scrap together a book featuring a montage of your family that night. Everyone gets his or her own page with an area to write or draw a picture. Laminate and bind. Make this a family tradition and see the collection you’ll create over the years.

9) Dance in the bubbles! Kids love bubbles. Have a bubble party and don’t forget to hug and kiss during the fun.

10) Ring in the New Year with a Signature Family Beverage Tradition! Try a Pink Sparkling Punch. (Tip: Canada Dry’s Cranberry Ginger Ale is a super hit also!)

Pink Sparkling Punch
1 12-ounce bottle white grape juice
1 6-ounce can frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed
1 16-ounce pkg. frozen whole strawberries, thawed
1 12-ounce can lemon-lime soda, chilled
8 cherries (optional)

Combine 1/2 of the grape juice, lemonade, and strawberries in a blender. Whirl until smooth and pour into drink container. Repeat steps 1 and 2 with remaining juice, lemonade, and strawberries. Add soda and stir well. Pour into 8 fancy plastic glasses. Add a cherry to the glass for garnish.

Variation: You can substitute regular grape juice for white grape juice.

-posted by Miss Kim, who says you can Welcome 2010 in style, with or without kids!