New Year's Eve Activities for Kids

Here are some fun ideas for celebrating New Year’s Eve with the whole family! New Year’s Eve activities for kids do not need to be complex. Keep the night simple! Celebrate with a few easy-to-fix foods and fun games or activities.

First, let’s start with remembering the past year. Take a look back on the year month-by-month with this fun printable activity.

This activity was originally posted in 2021, but I updated the file for remembering 2023.

It’s really fun (and meaningful!) to remember the year one month at a time rather than just thinking about major events.

This printable activity consists of two pages. Tape them together to create a record of the entire year.

At first, your kids may only be able to recall a handful of things that happened during the year. But keep going, and you’ll be amazed at what you come up with!

TIP: Scroll through your phone pictures to remind everyone what happened each month! You’ll be amazed at what you find.

Record birthdays, trips, and special occasions. Have kids write down accomplishments such as learning to ride a bike, starting to read chapter books, losing their first tooth, etc. Write down fun family memories like game nights, camping trips, or just simple things that happened. We wrote about the nest of baby birds we had in our yard this past April.

And, if sad or difficult things happened during the year, don’t be afraid to record those as well. Sad things are an important part of family life just as happy experiences are.

You may decide that certain things are too traumatic to revisit. But there may be hard memories that are worth talking about again. You may even discover as a family that there were good things that came from the hard times!

Want to print this activity? Click the link below. The file will open, and you can print from there.

NOTE – This file also includes pages for 2024 if you want to use this as a journaling activity throughout the year!

CLICK HERE: Remembering the Year NYE Activity

And here’s one more “looking back” idea – make a Scrapbook Page for the Past Year. (This is an OLD post from my first year of blogging!)

New Year’s Eve Menu Ideas

This is what we like to serve on New Year’s Eve! We don’t do all of these every year, but here are some options:

• Pigs in a Blanket – Little Smokies sausages in crescent rolls
• Rotel Dip – Velveeta cheese and Rotel tomatoes (I didn’t say this was health food!)
• Tortilla chips – for the Rotel dip.
• Apple slices
• Carrots, cucumbers, celery, and cherry tomatoes
• Ranch dip
• Steamed fresh green beans
• Homemade applesauce
• Christmas cookies

Other ideas:

• Individual pizzas
• Baked potatoes with toppings
• Macaroni and cheese (homemade) with toppings like bacon, tomatoes, mushrooms, etc.
• Popcorn
• Hot chocolate bar
• Breakfast foods

Family Games for New Year’s Eve

Here’s a collection of 20+ Family Card Games that are perfect for any occasion!

Another fun idea is this LEGO Team Building Game. This game is a BLAST! You’ll need to have at least 8 people, but if you do, it’s so much fun.

Teams compete to build a copy of a model. But the trick is that the one doing the building can’t actually see the model that they are trying to copy! The game relies on communication.

New Year’s Eve Crafts for Kids

Here’s a fun idea – build your own Ball Drop out of LEGO Bricks! (Build the numbers to reflect the current year, of course!)

If you’ve never tried making Salt and Glue Fireworks, this is such a fun art process! It’s really cool to watch the paint spread on its own.

Here’s a fun idea for a New Year’s Eve Confetti Popper! Messy, but fun! Use a hole punch to create confetti out of construction paper, which would be inexpensive and biodegradable.

Print some fun New Year’s Coloring Pages from The Best Ideas for Kids.

Here’s a whole collection of New Year’s Eve Party Ideas for Kids from Toddler Approved. (They’re not just for toddlers – that just the name of the site!) Such FUN ideas! And very simple and do-able.

Have a fun and safe New Year’s Eve!