Unique New Years Eve Ideas for Families at Home

New Year’s Eve Traditions with kids

Traditions are always about the little unique things you do as a family that will one day be spoken about, remembered and passed down to future generations. The little things tend to be more about time invested than money invested and are activities that can be repeated year after year. We have gathered as many unique ideas as we can to help inspire you to create your own traditions. If you do something special you think other families would enjoy in their New Years celebrations then please do let us know in comments below this post. 

New Year’s Eve at home with children

Not up to braving the crowds of revellers this year with your clan? Here are some great ideas for celebrating New Year’s Eve at home with your Brisbane Kids –

Glow Sticks

Buy some glow sticks (well priced at discount stores). Fill the bath up and pop the glow sticks in for some festive water fun. Another alternative is to put the glow stick inside a deflated balloon, blow it up, then float these in the bath. Be sure to supervise younger children in particular with glow sticks, as the contents are not nice if broken open.

Remember the year

When you sit down and serve dinner – take a moment to talk about what your family has achieved this year, or what you are grateful for. 

Sparkler Photos

Buy some sparklers and take some photos of each child writing their age or name in the sky. Just be careful with children holding the sparkler, as the metal can get very hot and burn little fingers. We used Be a Fun Mums guide to photographing sparkler writing when we did ours. 

Set up a DIY photobooth

Raid the kids’ dress-up box or pop down to your local dollar store and grab some fun dress ups like fake moustaches, feather boas etc for a fun photo booth experience. You can make your backdrop as simple or as elaborate as you like! 

If you happen to be a planner, then consider taking advantage of the Black Friday Sales or instore, the Boxing Day Sales and grab yourself an instant camera. The film for these cameras is expensive, but you can pick up the exact same film online for a lot cheaper (if you plan ahead). 

Set the clocks back or celebrate new years at noon

When you have young kids or you are just feeling old and want to be in bed by 9 pm, celebrating New Years Eve at noon is a nice compromise. Or, if you want to still have an evening celebration then you could cheekily wind the clocks back by 4 hours and celebrate New Years at 8 pm. 

Toast

Fill some plastic champagne/tumbler glasses and toast to your kids with some lemonade or sparkling mineral water to a wonderful year had!

Set goals for the New Year

Talk about what bits were your favourite and what you learnt from the past year. Then encourage everyone set some goals for next year. We love the idea of a jar where you place a note every time something wonderful happens or and achievement is made throughout the year; then reading these aloud on New Year’s Eve.

Neighbourhood party

Throw a neighbourhood or street party with other families and enjoy the fun.

Hourly Countdown

An hour by hour countdown box. Open a different package every hour to countdown the hours to the new year.

Family Board Games

Have a fun board game night. Make it all about family, being together and celebrating each other. Some favourites include the 5-second rule, Scattergories, Throw the Burrito and for older kids, the family edition of Cards Against Humanity. 

Make Pizzas

Homemade pizzas are a wonderful idea for New Year’s Eve festive fare that the kids can help make and then eat.

Have a “Dessert off”

This is a fun family tradition especially as the kids get older. Everyone picks a dessert and the yummiest dessert wins. Desserts are the perfect choice for a “cook off” because they can often be made a few days ahead. Other cook-offs we like the sound of include “Rib offs” which is about who can marinade and BBQ the best ribs and “Pizza offs” where kids choose their toppings and everyone judges each pizza. 

Family Disco

Have a family disco. Turn down the lights, put on some music and dance like crazy people! Spotify have tons of New Year playlists or create one for your family based on recent movies like Trolls and Frozen! 

New Year’s Interviews

Read out this year’s New Year’s Day interviews. To be completed on New Year’s Day, we love the idea of an ‘interview’ that is then read again on New Year’s Eve to see how each family member has changed in the course of 12 months. Take a look at Teach Mama‘s ideas for some wonderful interview questions.

TV

Watch New Year’s Eve celebrations on TV.

Have a movie marathon

Start in the morning and pick a series like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings or Ghostbusters.

Host a retro family New Years Party

Complete with games like Pin the Tail on the Donkey and Pass the Parcel, have a retro party just like you would host an at-home kids birthday party sans the birthday boy or girl. You could even finish the night off with a cake to celebrate the change to a new year! 

Challenge the teens on tech

I know what you are thinking but as the parent of teens, let me let you in on a little secret. Your teenagers just can’t wait to challenge you on tech. It’s a fun chance to bond over something they are interested in and you might just find yourself learning something new. Whether it is Fortnite or Mario cart you could alternate technology with board games for an even stevens type game off. Take it to the next level and create a scorecard with a list of games being played over the night to decide the ultimate grand champion! 

Plan a fancy New Years Day breakfast

For some families this might mean a BBQ picnic at a National Park, for others, ham and cheese croissants – it’s not as much about what you choose to eat or do in the morning, but that you do it at all. 

Give a New Years nod to your ancestors

Explore your heritage with the kids and discover some of the New Years traditions from around the world. 

Fun New Year’s Eve activities for families in Brisbane

How do you celebrate New Year’s Eve with your Brisbane Kids? Regardless of whether they can last the distance and still be awake at midnight, we’ve come up with some great ideas for fun things to do for families to celebrate the final day of the year. There are also several families and kid-friendly New Year’s Eve celebrations taking place in Brisbane this year, which can all be found on our Event Calendar

• Book a private gondola on the Wheel of Brisbane 
• Have a glamorous dinner at one of Brisbane’s city hotels. Most of the big hotels do a set price New Year’s Eve buffet, with reduced prices for children.

Happy New Year from Brisbane Kids!

Brisbane Kids wishes you and your Brisbane kids a fabulous New Year’s Eve. We can’t wait to share more awesome things to do with kids in Brisbane with you and your family over the next 12 months! Thanks for being part of the biggest family community in Brisbane and part of our own Brisbane Kids Family.