Home And Family

New Years Eve… A night to say good bye to the old and ring in the new.. For many people it is a night of revelry and fancy festivities. At our home it has always been a night of family and friends gathering together for food and fun. When our children were little, and we were much younger, they hated for us to go out on New Years Eve, even when I bribed them with their favorite babysitter, who I had booked months in advance. When our oldest got to be 6, she told me that she all she wanted for Christmas was for us to stay home on New Year’s Eve and have a big New Years Eve party with the kids.

From that little request, our family began a New Year’s Eve tradition that lasted over 10 years. We invited friends over with their children, family with the cousins and began holding our “Ring It and Sing It ” New Year’s Eve party. No fancy outfits, no costly dinners or expensive parties and no babysitter. That tradition turned out to be one of our family’s favorite holiday celebrations. Now that the kids are older and out on their own, I still get melancholy on New Year’s Eve as I remember all the fun we had when the house was noisy, chaotic and filled with kids. We would let them decorate the house with New Year’s decorations, get hats, balloons and noisemakers. They would make Countdown Cards for the number of kids that would be there each year. If there were 15 of them, at 11:45 as the big clock on the Dick Clark New Years special would countdown, they would each come parading into the main room doing silly dances or cheers, holding their Countdown Number as the clock ticked down. Everyone else would applaud each one and blow their noisemakers! The kids were always each hoping that they would get the #1 card and be the last one before we all crowded around the television to watch the Big Ball in Times Square drop down to officially signal the start of the New Year!

Sometimes all the adults still gather here but it is not quite the same without all the kids and their enthusiasm to stay up til midnight and enjoy the hoopla of the New Year’s countdown. Last year our 2 oldest children asked if they could plan a reprise of our old New Year’s Eve parties at the house. Sure enough, they did and it was wonderful and great fun.. perhaps a new tradition is in the making. So if you are contemplating what to do this New Year’s Eve.. maybe a family New Year’s Eve party at home with family and friends could be an option for your own group.