We love to hang out with our kids, and they love hanging out with us and feeling like big people. New Years Eve for us, and all my life has always been more of a family thing and celebration then a big adult party. Ours have always involved our kids and many times other families and their kids.
If you are like us, at this age I sometimes would much rather go to bed then stay up!
Not my kids! Any excuse to feel like an adult and the excitement of ringing in the New Year is overwhelming to them!
We involve them in a few ways:
- Let them help plan the food and gather the recipes
- Take them to the store shopping with us
- Let them print and cut out coupons
- Let them design and make party hats and favors
- Have a family movie night
In our old home we could have fireworks and that was a big part of our night. In our new subdivision ( a few blocks over ) we can’t even do sparklers, so our traditions have changed. We play games, eat food and watch movies.
Since our little ones tend to start “melting down” after about 10pm and dropping like flies, we have set our clocks back 2 hours and let them celebrate New Years at 10pm instead of midnight! Then we put them to bed and set the clocks ahead and celebrate with the big kids at midnight. The littles just want to feel like they are apart of the group with everyone else. If you watch the ball drop that might not work for you unless you are on the west coast, but ours really don’t so it works for us!
No matter how you celebrate, PLEASE be careful and stay off the roads if possible, I don’t want anything to happen to any of you! Happy New Years!
* Yes, I totally lie to my kids and tell them it is midnight. I also lie to them about the Easter Bunny and Santa as well!
Pamela says
Happy New Years Tiffany, I wish you and your family a FABULOUS New Year full of love and happiness. You are a very good mom and I love how you celebrate life with your children. I want to thank you for all that you do for everyone, not just couponing. You care about the people whom are affected by natural disasters, many organizations set up to help people in need, etc. Your a very special person and the world is a better place for many because of you. God Bless and be happy and safe!!!!
amanda says
I totally second every thing Pamela said!!!
Peggy says
Happy New Year!!! Nothing wrong with Santa and Easter Bunny…..Tooth fairy too….Cinderella and Snow White…the list goes on…keep up the good work! Love your site…..
lisa says
I am afraid I may be the very worse of the bunch. When my children were younger, they would loose time over the break from school for Christmas vacation. When ever they would ask when Santa was coming I would just say real soon. On Christmas eve , they would go to bed like usual and wake up to Santa having visited . I would act all surprised and they would forget about that by the next year. Those darling monsters only had to keep me up one Christmas Eve with no sleep before I started scheming. Now my babies are 14 and 17 and we open Santa on Christmas Eve so my son doesn’t have me up at 4 am to have Christmas. It gets better every year.
Tiffany says
Oh I love that!