What Are Your New Year's Traditions?

Ever since we had a kid it's been hot wings, champagne, and the twilight zone marathon. Baby sitters are in short supply where we live!

What are your and your Husband's cultural/ethnic backgrounds?
Then, per your heritage, do traditions/customs that are of your heritage.
It is fun for the kids and also enlightening and teaches the kids about their own heritage.

That is what we do.

We stay home. We watch Rockin New Years on TV and have sparkling grape juice in wine glasses for the kids, the real deal for us! We have a nice meal at dinner time, then some appetizer type stuff at about 9:30-ish. We let the kids stay up until midnight if they can make it. Our oldest is 9 and she only made it to see NY ring in the New Year, not Chicago. It's 10:25, and she's still going strong so we'll see.
While your kids are little, you can do a countdown at 6:59 or 7:59PM and do a little toast with grape juice then put them to bed.
People make so much about going out on NYE and are always surprised to hear we're staying home, but I'd rather not be on the roads with all the drunks, and paying the overpriced amounts for dinner. We did all that when we were young, it's not worth it anymore.

Happy New Year!

I agree...New Year's Day blows. It is the most hyped, boring holiday. The hats and noisemakers are lame and nothing is open tomorrow. Neither my husband or I have any cultural or family traditions besides a nice meal. I bought some angus steaks. At least tomorrow will be nice out and we can probably go to the park. In January, that is a BIG event. As for tonight, and entire bottle of champagne built for two.

We always do champagne at midnight and peas and greens on New Year's Day. The kids gradually get incorporated into it as they age. That's how it was for me growing up as well. I just put my two to bed! Waiting on my husband to get back from the store. We were going to drop by a friend's party with them earlier, but the oldest passed out after an exhausting day at the zoo! We've had parties here with people who also have kids in the past, and we'll probably do more of those in the future.

we are boring too but don't mind it at all. not one to be on the streets and have the kids home with a sitter. we rather hang out together and enjoy sparkling cider, fun decor and just play.

new years day is a day to clean Christmas all up and shop for the week.

J.:

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

We made Chicken Cordon Bleu from scratch - Bob pounds the chicken breasts out - I roll them up!! Buttered noodles and peas or broccoli. tonight we had peas.

We usually play Scrabble. However, Bob has been working on the boy scouts web site and is just a tad bit drained...

Past 3 years my husband has worked so I usually get my favorite fast food or sit down restaurant food if I can afford it and rent a movie and hang with my son. i usually get a bucket of margarita mix and alcohol and make a drink. i only have 1 or 2.
This year I decided to hang with my friends and I did not have a good time. It was loud and you couldn't talk to anyone because no matter how loud someone talked, you couldn't hear them.

Happy new year! I'm a few days late (wasn't on much over the weekend), but since this is for next year anyway, thought I'd add my 2 cents. This year was pretty good, especially since we switched plans at the last minute (day before). We had a backyard campout (but it got cold and we didn't stay out the whole time, lol)----it was still fun, especially for the kids.
Every year I make a photo album of the "highlights" of the year on snapfish.com or kodakgallery.com. It's all done except NYE by then, and just sitting in my "projects" bin online. We gathered around and went through it online, looking at everything from the cover, to all the photos of stuff we did for the year, and had some laughs about a lot of it. We set up our family tent in the backyard, played horseshoes (a kid's playset that my brother gave them, so they can throw the horseshoes too), Tball, soccer, etc in the backyard, and then my husband had the boys deliver his traditional NYE gift to neighbors and our house too (they rang the bell, I answered): it's a little piece of cake, a $1 coin, and a piece of real coal: so we may have full bellies, prosperity, and warmth for the new year. We keep ours wrapped up in the freezer until the next NYE.
Beforehand, I had made some wings and a homemade chili for the chili dogs. Outside, we made a fire in the firepit and I taught the boys to make s'mores, then we cooked hotdogs and even made our cocoa on the fire, like we were really camping. Our dinner was wings, chili dogs, and veggie sticks with some ranch dip. Naughty! But hey, it was a little party, not a normal meal. We hung out, talked, did some star gazing, took turns saying what we really liked about 2011 and what we were hoping for 2012, and played some flashlight games. We got up in the tent and told silly stories, sang a couple songs, played like we were sleeping and made stupid snoring noises for a little bit. But really, we knew it was going to be too cold so we just did it for a little while, then came back inside to have sparkling grape juice for the kids, and a bottle of champagne that my husband and I shared: we wore party hats and blew our horns starting at 8:59pm (that's when we did our countdown for the "Goodnight old year"), then we had a little toast and put the kids to bed. My oldest is 5 and wanted to sleep in a tent, so we put a blanket on the top bunk and let it hang down so he was in a "tent" but in his own bed. His bunk is shaped like a T so the blanket only needed to hang down on 1 side; it worked perfectly. I crawled into his "tent" and he got to hold his flashlight while we said prayers, but then it was lights out and bedtime: 9 is late for the boys! We finished our champagne and watched a little TV, then went to bed early too. It was a nice family evening though.

Other years we make a more formal meal and play games inside: charades, guess who, dancing, have our little party hats, mardi gras beads, blow our horns, etc.

This year: we checked online before bedtime to see what time dawn started, so we knew what time to set our alarm clock. I got up before the alarm actually, made a thermos of cocoa and packed the marshmallows too. Got everyone up and we went to the beach just as dawn was breaking. We got to the beach, poured out our cocoa, and had a toast to the new year. We watched the sun rise on the first day of the new year (this has been my tradition for years, but this was the first time the family joined me). We took a couple cute pictures: one of all our cups of cocoa as we did our toast, and a neat one of the sun just breaking over the ocean behind the boys as they squatted in the sand by the beachy-grass. It's pretty! We took a couple pictures of it looking like we were living on some other planet with 2 suns (the sun reflecting powerfully on the ocean). We let the boys go run around and look for horseshoe crabs while we hung back and just reflected on our own at the new year and what we hope for it. Then we went home, and my husband made the french toast, fresh sliced strawberries, bacon, and OJ for the boys and mimosas for us. We were supposed to go to church but by the time we finished breakfast, church was ready to start so we missed it. We had a Bible reading and prayed at home, then the boys played with their Christmas toys and we watched a little TV. We all went for a walk (with the dog), etc. I took down the tree's lights and ornaments, packed all our inside Christmas stuff away, while husband took down the tree and put it in the tree bag, and put the dining room table back to normal and it it's normal place. We just kinda cleaned up a little and prepared for the new week. It was really nice. We had a nice dinner (shrimp creole), watched a movie, played some games. And someone gave us a gingerbread thing that makes 4 sleighs....there's 4 of us, so that was perfect. We sat at the table and made our sleighs together and decorated them with the candies and Santas. It was fun. Messy, silly, sticky, fun. We took pictures of all the sleighs (my 2 year old wanted to eat his NOW so I helped him throw some candies on it and took the picture of his first, then while he smashed it we finished making ours). Then we uploaded some NYE pictures and finished up our family photo album for the year. (I wait to order the book until it goes on sale though---they will go on sale for like 65% off, or buy 1 get 2 free, a few times a year). So, that's what we did / do on NYE and NYD. I think it's worth it to take the effort to do something that is special for your family, rather than just ignore the day. Fun to have some little traditions. Good luck finding yours! And happy new year!

For the past 6-7 years, we've celebrated New Year's Eve with friends at someone's home. The host provides a main dish and some drinks, and all the other families bring at least one side dish and any other drinks that they want. This year, we had 6 families at our home for a total of 12 adults and 15 children ages 12 and under. The adults have a good time chatting and playing cards, and the kids run around and play whatever. Most years, people have stayed until midnight, but some families do leave earlier to get littler ones in bed.

At midnight, we watch TV for the countdown, and the adults get a bit of champagne if they want it, while the kids get some sparkling grape juice. Then, there are several minutes of cheering, kissing, and celebrating until everyone finally packs up and leaves.

It's a lot of fun without the craziness of going out, and we get to celebrate with our own family and other families whose company we really enjoy.

On New Year's Day, we sleep in as late as possible and just hang out together being lazy. We usually watch the Rose Parade (except this year when it was on on the 2nd instead of the 1st), snack off and on all day, play cards or board games, etc. No specific traditions -- just lots of relaxing and hanging out as a family.