How Should I Celebrate New Year’s Eve with my Child?

New Year’s Eve can be celebrated in many ways with your child. It can be celebrated with a big family party, it can be celebrated during the day and it can be celebrated with some quieter reflections on the year that has passed.

How Is New Year’s Eve Celebrated Around the World?

New Year’s is celebrated in so many different ways around the globe, from superstitions to eating traditional food in order to bring good luck for the upcoming year. Why not have a read here of some of the traditions in other countries and perhaps you can try to incorporate some into your celebration this year?

France

French people celebrate by eating raclette, which is melted cheese and drinking champagne. You could recreate this for your kids by having a cheese toastie and a glass of sparkling apple juice.

They also exchange kisses at midnight wishing each other good luck for the coming year.

Germany

German people also celebrate with raclette (melted cheese like fondue). Fireworks are a big thing for their new year which they call Silvester.

There is a German tradition called Rummelpottlauf where children go from house to house asking for sweets, kind of like at Hallowe’en in the UK. They play a Rummelpott, which is a type of drum.

The Netherlands

Dutch people celebrate by having a dinner together called Gourmetten. A type of hot plate is placed in the centre of the table and each person places small pieces of meat and vegetables on it to cook and then everyone helps themselves.

The Dutch also eat Appelflappen on New Year’s Eve. They are doughnuts with apple inside.

Brazil

Brazilians wear white on NYE. They also like to eat lentils as they believe lentils attract money. Many people celebrate the New Year at concerts on the beach and there is a tradition to jump seven waves. Another food they enjoy traditionally on NYE is pomegranate because of the many seeds it has. It is thought that they symbolise the abundance in your life.

Spain

Spanish people grip 12 green grapes as the clock strikes midnight and then frantically try to eat them all before the last gong. The 12 grapes are to symbolise the 12 months of the coming year and for each one eaten, it’s another month of good luck for them. I would not recommend fast eating of grapes for children (or anyone, in fact) due to the risk of choking.

Another tradition in Spain is to drop something gold into your glass of drink in order for good fortune in the new year and they also believe that you must start the new year off on the right foot and so they literally do that by making their first step with their right foot.

Ways to Celebrate During the Day:

• Create firework artwork.
• Draw pictures of the fun things you’ve done this past year.
• Make a scrapbook for the year just passed. Print out a selection of photos and glue to a page and let the kids doodle around them. Do this every year and you can make a book with them by punch holes in them and tying ribbon through the holes.
• Make chocolate and bread stick or pretzel stick sparklers. Melt chocolate, dip the stick in and then sprinkle with colourful hundreds and thousands. Add a chocolate star on the top, if you have one.

• Create some fireworks pictures using handprints and paints. Add glitter for some sparkle.
• Do a kid-friendly escape room around the house. Solve clues and find items together.
• Watch the New Year’s firework celebrations in different countries as they happen. Have a globe and find the countries on there together.

• Hold your own countdown at a time of your choice. Pop last year’s fireworks on the TV and celebrate the New Year earlier than midnight.
• Have party food to make the day special.

• Play board games.

• Hold a Noon Year’s Eve Party at home and celebrate with music and dancing. Dress up in your party clothes even though you’re at home.
• Make some sparkly playdough and play with rolling pins and cookie cutters to make firework shapes or anything at all.

• Make plain biscuits and ice them with the new year or with colourful icing like fireworks.

• Have a bath with glow sticks. We got some cool light up bath ducks from B&M which our girls love.

• Make a headband using an Alice band and add sparkly pipe cleaners to make either a fireworks headband or a headband with the new year on, e.g. 2025.

Ways to Celebrate the Year That Has Passed:

• Create a time capsule of important memories from the past year. It could be a collection of photos or notes.
• Look though that year’s Gratitude Jar, if you created one. (This is a jar where you put post-it notes every time someone in the family did something amazing they year or showed kindness to others.)

Ways to Celebrate In the Evening:

• Have a ball drop like in the USA. Tape a sheet up on the ceiling with some balloons inside. Tie a bit of string to one corner. When the clock strikes midnight, pull the string and the balloons all come down.

• Drink sparkling fruit juice like Schloer or some apple juice mixed with lemonade. Put them in plastic wine glasses for added flair.

• Have sparklers in the back garden. Adults hold them and children watch.

• Watch the kids’ favourite film with snacks. (Popcorn is not advised for under 5s by the NHS due to a choking risk.)

• Have a dance party. Dim the lights, put some music on and dance. Add glow sticks for extra fun.

• Set up an obstacle course.
• Have a sleepover in the lounge under the Christmas tree, if yours is still up.

• Watch the New Year’s London fireworks on TV.

• Have family over or go to a family party. Take lots of photos.

• Have a games night.

• Decorate party hats.

• Colour with family members. My girls love it when their aunt or uncle colour with them. There are some fab free new year’s colouring sheets available here. Just click on the download button to get them straightaway.

Ways to Look Forward to the New Year:

• Start a Gratitude Jar. Have a pile of post-its and a jar. Every time throughout the year when you spot a family member doing something great, write it down and pop it in the jar. At the end of next year, read through the notes together as a family.

• Have a family meeting to decide what you’d all like to do next year in terms of holidays, days out, clubs, crafts, anything the kids want to do this coming year that might be possible to carry out. This could be your family bucket list for the following year.

• Discuss what didn’t work this past year. Were there any things the kids didn’t enjoy and could be changed for the next year? Obviously this is age dependent as to whether you include the children in this discussion.

However you are celebrating the new year, have a good one! And I’ll see you on the other side!

Further blog posts:

Christmas Activities with a Toddler – Fun Family Home

How Can I Encourage My Child To Write At Home? – Fun Family Home