Take the New Year party home

So you go clubbing or partying every New Year’s Eve and this year you feel like staying at home? Or do you have children who prevent you from dancing and drinking to welcome the New Year?
Or is December 31 that time of the year when you reserve it for family and close friends? No matter what the reason, here are a few innovative ways that is sure to turn your time at home into a fun evening.

1. Over the years, pictures keep accumulating and all that happens to them is that they get stored in different folders in the computer. So this New Year’s eve, make a slide show of such pictures – family or friends depending on who is present at your home party. Add a background song to it. As you run this ‘photo movie’ add your own anecdotes and commentary before changing the slides. Reliving good times of the past is sure to be a good way to ring in the New Year. Don’t forget to serve drinks and snacks to your guests to complete the ‘movie’ experience.

2. Throw a slumber party if you are going to be spending New Year’s Eve with your friends. Remove all the furniture from the living area and hire a sleeping bag (or just the mattresses from your bedroom).
Add colourful cushions and rugs. Keep a lot of snacks ready and do not forget a collection of your favourite movies. Go ahead and relive your childhood - play games like Chinese Checkers, Ludo, Scrabble etc.

3. If you have a fireplace in your house or a garden patch then this idea will work well. Make a fire near the fireplace or out in the garden. Once the party begins, give all your guests a piece of paper and ask them to write a list of bad lucks, regrets and mistakes that they faced during the year. On the stroke of midnight, throw the pieces of paper into the fire.

As it burns, raise a toast to better times and bring in the New Year. For a more dramatic effect burst a few crackers too. After all, this is what people in Puerto Rico do – make a lot of noise by ringing bells, honking car horns or banging drums because they believe that all the noise and sound will chase away the evil spirits and bring in a New Year that is joyous and happy.

4. If you are throwing a party you can ask each of your guests to get their best home cooked dish. Appoint a jury and vote for the best tasting one. You can even make arrangements in your kitchen for a food making contest. Arrange for specific raw materials with which each will have to come up with something new. If it is an adult party, then ask the guests to make their own cocktail and give it a name.

5. If you are going to be spending New Year’s Eve at home with your family then this is a good way to spend the evening. Buy a scrapbook from before and keep it ready. Do the same with various drawings, craft work, family pictures, souvenirs collected from your various family trips during the year etc. On the 31st, spend the evening sticking them and adding journal entries to them too.

6. This idea works well if you are going to be spending your evening with little children in the house. Make sure you have all your craft supplies ready from before though – card paper, coloured paper, glitter, paints etc. Spend the evening making cards for the neighbours with the children and on the stroke of midnight visit each one’s house who you have made a card for and slide it under their door. It will definitely bring a smile to their faces when they get up next morning.

7. Play games or conduct impromptu fashion shows for those who you are celebrating the evening with. Just keep the event associated with colours. For example; Call out a colour and ask the kids to find something of that shade from the room; Arrange for craft supplies with which party caps of different colours can be made; Decorate the room with different coloured balloons and have a bursting ceremony at midnight.
For the fashion show, call out a colour and everyone who has that colour on his/her dress will need to walk or dance to a song that you play.

8. This works best when it is an evening with close family and friends. Ask everyone to come prepared with their resolutions for the coming year. Start the evening by asking each one to read out what his is. Then he needs to begin acting on it for the rest of the evening. For example if its “I will lose weight” then he watches what he is eating all evening.

Once all have finished, provide each with an envelope and ask them to put their resolution chit in it and seal the envelope. Keep these with you. Mail it to the respective persons when the coming year is about to end – let each analyse, 12 months later, how well he lived up to what he had promised.

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