New Year's Eve

[Kendra AU]

Anyone care to share ideas for their bags? We do bags too, all though my children have never stayed up until midnight {and are none the wiser}, but this year things might be a little different as we're also going out to an event for a little while.

I'd like to keep up with the tradition of bags but some of the things we normally do on NYE we did on Christmas Eve and I'd like to not make a repeat. I'm nerdy like that. So, if you care to share ideas I'd love to hear them.

Here's a list of what we normally do:

Go to the local cherry shed: taste cherries & get a cherry ice cream
Read new comic books
make homemade pizza
make a desert {usually brownies or something simple they can make with little to no help from me}
play a game with the whole family {often I get a new one special for the night}
Watch a movie
Play a video game as a family {set limit of time}
Make something with the year on it to wear at our countdown


I usually provide fizzy apple juice and skewers of 12 grapes for the countdown {you're suppose to eat one grape for each month of the new year as quick as you can. Each sweet grape means a sweet month, each sour grape means a rough month.. it's fun to be silly with it}

We also have sparklers & party poppers for the big "tado" type moment. Then we quickly march children off to bed and turn in ourselves.

[normafl]

Hey Kendra we do a very similar schedule for our new years. We make pizza, dessert, buy a new game and movie too! We also do a bag with crayons and paper.
We make posters. I have two girls so one writes good-bye 2011 and the other one writes Hello 2012 and they decorate there posters and we take pictures of them holding there signs. We have enjoyed looking back and seeing them grow up and change through our new years posters.

This year we are going over a friends house for part of our new years and we are rushing home (well not rushing there across the street) to make our posters and drink our apple bubbly and eat our twelve grapes and take pictures.

You would think my kids would be tired of this routine but they are actually upset we are missing the bags this year. We just decided that since we are going to be out we would skip it. So maybe they wouldn't mind doing it again same as Chrsitmas Eve.

[Mary FL]

Thanks for posting this. We are going to a friend's house for tea at 5 p.m., so maybe when we return I could surprise everyone with a planned event. We've never done anything like the bags. Thanks for the reminder!

[WendyW]

Bags? I've never heard of bags for New Years.

We have generally not celebrated NY with our kids. They know what day it is, but we don't do anything special for it. My experience was always that NYE was a night to go get drunk, and we don't participate in that!

I only have memory of ONE NYE growing up, and that was the year I was 8. My mom had to work a night shift, and my dad let us stay up till 4am. Mostly he was visiting with a neighbor and never bothered to send us to bed.

In more recent years as my youngest has gotten old enough for me to not care about bedtime, we have done a few New Years parties with friends. No particular traditions involved, just noisemakers when The Ball falls on TV. This year we all will attend a NYE square dance.

[Kendra AU]

Wendy, we choose to celebrate it for a few reasons. The biggest being it was a big deal to my great-grandmother and she use to invite my siblings and I over and we had special snacks and counter down. Thus it was important to my mother who wanted to do that same special thing with her own grandchildren. My sons, unfortunately, have never had that opportunity considering how far away we live.

Ironically, it's equally an important holiday to my mil. Not important as in "must celebrate", but she mentioned off handedly to me when we first moved here how they use to celebrate it in England and it was always fun, not heavily drinking for her family, etc.

A few years ago I decided we'd make a fun new family tradition and celebrate. So from about 1pm until about 10pm my children open a little bag with either something inside to do or a note of what we will do. Nothing fancy at all. Last year we did the things i listed and also wrote down something about ourselves we hoped to change. We always invite my mil over and she thinks it's the bees knees to celebrate with her grandchildren even if my kids are ordinarily tucked away by 1030 pm and snoring peacefully when the fireworks in town go off.

My husband and I knew, well before we married, that we intended whole heartedly to make a big deal of making sure our children understood the heritage on both sides of their family considering there's many differences considering the "ethnic" ties. Holidays is a big part of the for us, and it's always fun when specific holidays line up perfectly in both backgrounds.

Celebrating simple things like NYE/NYD and Christmas are pretty much the ONLY holidays that line up for us like that. Oh sure, there's Easter & Valentine's Day, but the differences in celebrating are huge for the two sides of the family. So we take advantage of purposefully celebrating in a fun way with our children when we can.

I agree with you, it is a holiday where many people over imbibe and that's not a part of it we wish to be a part of. But, it's also important for me to show my children that they can participate in holidays and keep the meanings to them special, kwim?

[Kendra AU]

Oo, I forgot to say which things I do have officially squared away!

We will have:

1. New Devotionals. I bought each child one {365 days worth} for the new year, I want to encourage them to do some Bible reading/devotional time on their own as a way to start the day.

2. New Calendars. It's traditional in my dh's family to give people calendars for Christmas. For the past few years I've always given one child Veggie Tales & another a really awesome Bible verse one made by the Aussie Bible Society, unfortunately I couldn't get VT's this year so they both get the Aussie one.

3. The outing dh signed us up for. We won't be staying for more then an hour or so though.

4. Sparklers, MASSIVE party popper {I can't wait to see these awesome things!!}, & glow sticks.

[Marsha in Fl]

Thanks to you ladies, this will be the 2nd year we are doing bags.
They were a big hit last year and this year I'm already thinking of things to do. We didn't let them stay up till midnight last year, but finished and "celebrated" at 10pm. Probably won't change that, I don't think I can make it till midnight!

We will be doing (in no particular order)
gingerbread kit (we never had time before Christmas)
dessert
homemade pizza
board game
movie (they got Dolphin Tale for Christmas!)
poppers (might get some sparklers too)
art project to welcome in the new year and maybe writing some resolutions down.

That is all I've got now. I'll have to keep an eye out for some more things. I love the idea of the grapes. I hadn't heard of it before.

[Mary FL]

Marsha, great! Sounds like fun! Ten p.m. is fine with us. We'll see you Saturday!

Seriously, though, what a great idea to go out and find a 1/2 priced gingerbread kit for Saturday! You ladies ROCK!

[Michele]

YIKES! Is it that time of year already?! Apparently, our New Year's Eve festivities have become a tradition not only with our family, but with my children's friends! This year, we have somewhere around 12 girls (we might have a few more). One of my girls is going to a friend's camp for chilly, super fun (horseback riding in the snow, snow campfire and s'mores). I'm just not sure what to do!! I'm feeling a definite lack of creativity (post holiday brain drain!). In past years, we've made pizzas, decorated tshirts and pillowcases (we use Sharpies and the color lasts for a long, long, time), decorated wish boxes for the coming year..Oh...need to get thinking! Hoping that some of you are feeling more creative than I!!!! !

[JavaJackie]

Here is the link to our bags this year! I am so excited! We have a Disney theme going on!

http://themullislife.blogspot.com/20...-eve-bags.html