New Year's Eve

Our family has many Christmas and birthday traditions, but by the time that New Year's Eve rolls around we are exhausted from all the merriment. This year we found our tradition that we will continue through the years. We celebrated the end of 2018 with my friend, Serena, who cleverly introduced us to it. Everyone had so much fun and all the children were asleep by 8:15pm.

Serena came up with activities to do each hour leading up to midnight, which was actually 8pm. Since our kids are young enough, they can't tell time.

At 7pm pretend time and 3pm actual time, the kids opened up a card that read “Mad libs and guessing jar.” In the bag, there was a mad libs story and a jar filled with M&Ms. We took turns guessing how many peanut M&Ms could fill the jar, and picked words to the mad libs story.

At 8pm pretend time and 4pm actual time, it was time for a dress-up photo shoot. Serena had collected New Year's items for the kids to be silly with while we had our cameras snapping away.

At 9pm pretend time and 5pm actual time, we enjoyed supper, which was fondue. We dipped celery, carrots, apples, olives, peppers, tomatoes, crackers, bread, and sausage until we were stuffed.

At 10pm pretend time and 6pm actual time, glow sticks were cracked, lights were shut off, and music was turned up for an epic dance party. The kids spent the entire hour wearing themselves out while we took turns DJing, enjoying music from the 90's.

At 11pm pretend time and 7pm actual time, we introduced the kids to Pop Rocks. The plastic champagne flutes were filled with Sprite and Pop Rocks for toasting in the New Year.

At midnight pretend time and 8pm actual time, an excited countdown led to a balloon drop and confetti poppers spraying tissue paper everywhere.

Ten minutes after screaming happy new year, the cherubs turned zombies were snuggled in their beds and kissed goodnight.

The adults did a quick vacuum and tidying, while we congratulated Serena on an awesome execution of New Year's Eve. The tradition has now been set. Happy New Year! We can't wait for all the exciting adventures in 2019.