Planning the New Year with Your Family

13 November, 2023

New Year’s Eve is a time usually celebrated with a big party, loud music and staying up late, but sometimes a quiet night is not only best for you, but for the whole family, especially the younger ones!

Rather than the usual, why not consider one of the options from the list below of what to do for New Year’s Eve this year?

Family Activities to Do on New Year’s Eve

Make a Bucket List

There’s no better time than the New Year to reflect on the past year and to also look forward to the new one. Making a bucket list on NYE is a great way to ensure that you set some exciting activities you’ve always wanted to do, before the new year has even started!

To include the whole family, you can each individually have a bucket list, which might include things such as attending a concert or trying a new hobby and also have a joint bucket list that might include things such as going on hikes or visiting a theme park together. You could even pick out one of the incredible events taking place at Oakwood Theme Park over the next year!

Have Your Party Early

To ensure that your NYE is as family-friendly as possible, why not consider celebrating the New Year a little earlier in the night? You could even theme the night based on a country that is a few hours ahead so that you can celebrate the New Year with people across the globe. Research traditions that are observed on December 31st so that your night can be as authentic as possible.

For example, you could start to celebrate the New Year at 7pm, with traditional Indian music, food, and drinks, as it would be 11:30pm over in India!

If you like, you could even have 2 celebrations, one for the children and one for the adults that want to stay up until midnight to watch the fireworks.

Take Part in Daytime Activities

New Year’s Eve celebrations don’t have to take place solely during the evening! The day is as good a time as any to come together with loved ones to celebrate the New Year coming in. Activities such as going on bike rides, hikes, having a disco in the living room or even building snowmen can help to make some great memories for you and your family.

If the weather is bitterly cold, you could even spend the day indoors cooking together as a family, ready to eat in the evening. Why not spend the afternoon making some celebratory decorations? You could create your own banners to hang in the living room and add sequins, or perhaps make party headbands using existing headbands and pipe cleaners!

Make a Time Capsule

Celebrating the New Year is as much about saying goodbye to the last year as it is welcoming in the new year, so with that in mind, making a time capsule of the past year might be a great way to spend your NYE.

Fill a box with a few things each that represent the year you’ve just had such as photos, newspaper clippings about stories close to your heart, or keepsakes from events that have happened that year. You can open it after a year, 5 years, 10 years or anywhere in between.

Make a List of New Year’s Resolutions

While waiting for the clock to strike midnight, making a list of your personal and familial New Year’s Resolutions is a great way to pass the time and reflect on the year you and your family have had.

Why not start a new gym routine to get yourself a little more active? Or, add a little excitement to your upcoming 12 months with some thrilling adrenaline-filled activities!

When making your list as a family, focus on making the activities easily achievable and fun for everyone. Examples include cooking more as a family or planning monthly sports events. This is only a bit of fun, and no one should feel bad for not sticking to their resolution.

Make Plans for the New Year

A new year comes with plenty of exciting opportunities, such as holidays, birthdays, and weddings. By making plans throughout the year, you can make sure that you and your family always have something to look forward to. Aim to have something planned at regular intervals, even if you have “big” months and “small” months.

There is a heck of a lot of ideas that you can take part in this New Year’s Eve that involve the whole family. We hope that we’ve given you some ideas and that we can play a part in your new year plans.