New Year’s Eve Party Ideas

New Year’s Eve is just around the corner, and if you are like me, you want to plan ahead a little to have some fun games, food, and other activities planned for those you will be celebrating with. You can make your New Year’s Eve party as big or as small as you want, and we have a lot of fun New Year’s Eve party ideas to help you.

The first thing you want to do is figure out how many people are going to be there, and how old they are. If you are going to have mostly adults, that will be a lot different than having a lot of kids. Also, you need to know numbers so you can make sure you have enough food and drinks for everyone as well as party favors, etc.

Once you have figured out who is going to be there, you can start planning out the activities, games, food, music and other entertainment for the night. Some of these require more prep work than others, but they are all going to be a lot of fun!

You may even want to plan a theme like Harry Potter, LEGO, Minecraft, Lord of the Rings, or Mystery and plan your activities, games, and food around that. If you are doing a mystery party you can plan an escape room type of activity or have them solve clues to get to the next thing. For Harry Potter, you could serve themed food like Butter Beer and have them make magic wands. For a LEGO party, you could have them build something with LEGO’s they get to take home or keep or race to make certain things.

New Year’s Eve Party Ideas for KIDS

Depending on how old your little kids are, you may want to do an earlier New Year’s celebration and then put them to bed and have the real one with the older kids and adults. You can have a lot of fun with dancing, face painting, balloons, food, games, activities and more! Then pick a time when you have them celebrate New Year’s (like 6 pm or 7 pm) then have them get ready for bed or watch a movie.

My daughter had the idea of doing it like a carnival where they earn tickets for each activity or game they participate in and winners get more – and they can use those tickets to exchange for small prizes and treats for the movie. I love that!

Here are Food, Game and Activity New Year’s Party Ideas for Kids:

FOOD

• Finger foods
• juice boxes
• crackers
• mini hot dogs (or pigs in the blanket)
• veggie tray
• fruit (fruit cups)
• mini water bottles
• mini-cookies
• mini-cupcakes,

GAMES

• Bowling
• Ring Toss
• Uno
• Guessing Games
• Pictionary
• Puzzle Races
• Unwrapping game (wrap treats and money randomly in cellophane and make a giant plastic wrap ball – use dice and have one person with mittens or gloves on trying to unwrap it while the next person tries to roll a specific number to stop the unwrapping and the ball is passed to the next person).

ACTIVITIES

• Decorating cookies
• Decorating cupcakes
• Paint party (have then each with their own paint supplies and follow someone giving directions like a paint night)
• Countdown activities (start at 6 pm and have a new thing every hour for them to do)
• Making confetti to throw at midnight
• Make snowflakes or Snowmen

New Year’s Eve Party Ideas for TEENS

FOOD

• Root Beer Floats or Sprite and Sherbet Floats
• Chips and dips
• Veggie tray
• Fruit
• Bacon wrapped smokies
• Deviled eggs
• Pizza wraps
• Hot chocolate
• Sparkling cider for midnight toasts
• Muddy Buddies
• Scones or funnel cakes
• Brownies
• Mini chip bags
• Mini sodas and juices or cans
• Water bottles

GAMES

• Pick your Poison card game (family edition)
• Mafia or Finding Nemo, etc
• Night games (if in a warm area or large house)
• Would you rather
• Pictionary
• Charades
• Monopoly
• Catan
• Apples to Apples
• Video game tournament (Mario Kart, etc)
• Dart gun war (Nerf war)

ACTIVITIES

• Make your own holiday swag (headbands, bracelets, necklaces, noise makers, etc)
• Decorating sugar cookies or cupcakes
• Karaoke
• Making a list of New Year’s Resolutions
• Minute to Win It games
• Escape Room
• Countdown to midnight with activities every hour or at a given time
• Donut eating contest (hang donut on a string and see who can eat their donut first)

New Year’s Eve Party Ideas for ADULTS

FOOD

• Bacon wrapped smokies
• Chips and dip (queso, sour cream dips, salsa, hummus, guacamole, bean dip, cheese ball)
• Crackers and cheese with meats
• Cookies (macaroons)
• Brownies
• Sparkling Cider to toast at midnight
• Trail mix
• Soda, juice, water bottles
• Mini cinnamon rolls
• Mini cream puffs

GAMES

• Pick your Poison card game (adult edition)
• Mafia or Werewolf
• Cards Against Humanity card game
• Minute to Win-It style games (like having a ball in the end of nylon stocking that you put on your head and try to tip bottles over (wrecking ball), or putting ping pong balls in a tissue box and tying the box around your wait and seeing who can get all of the balls out first just by shaking and dancing around (junk in the trunk)).
• Codenames board game
• Would you rather or Never have I ever

ACTIVITIES

• Nailed It contest (taking turns to be the judges and the bakers)
• Karaoke contest
• Escape room
• Murder Mystery
• Make a vision board for 2019
• Set and share New Year’s resolutions – and commit to helping each other

I hope these New Year’s Party Ideas for kids, teens, and adults help to get you going on ideas for your own New Year’s Eve party! With a little planning, you will be able to have a lot of fun and ring in the New Year with style!

What are some of your favorite games, food, and activities to do on New Year’s Eve?