If you were to ask me or any of my siblings what we remember about New Year’s Eve celebrations growing up, we would undoubtedly mention our very good friends, the Yokes. I wrote about the Yokes in a blog post from October 2011 and included a few pictures of their incredible house. Through most of the 1980s, we went to church with the Yokes and our families became good friends. Every year, the Yokes invited the entire church to their home for a New Year’s Eve celebration. If I remember correctly, it usually started around 8:00 pm and lasted long into the night. There was all sorts of great food served all evening long, board games for all ages in a family room, games and contests in the living room, and the main meal was served just after midnight (this last part could be my faulty memory; it seemed like they brought out more food at midnight, but maybe that was when I finally stopped playing long enough to eat. :-). But mostly, we kids loved playing in their awesome basement. How can a basement be awesome? It’s very hard to describe, but this was a very, very old house, and part of the basement had probably been the original crawlspace. This area of the basement had a very low ceiling that, even as kids, we had to duck down to fit into. In this very small area was a large furnace-type thing that we could run back behind. Connecting this older part of the basement to the newer, taller part was a very short, steep ramp – just a few feet – but great fun to run up and down! It’s hard to put into words what a fun, magical night this was for a kid, but suffice it to say, I’ve never thought we’d be able to capture something as special on New Year’s Eve for our kids. We’ve always had fun on New Year’s Eve (not counting that one in 2010), usually having lots of fun appetizers, fizzy drinks and puzzles or games (Boggle and Yahtzee are two of our favorites), but each year, we’ve tried to ramp it up a little bit and make the evening more special.
Now, to be brutally honest here, I have to admit that planning things out is not my strong suit. I do like to plan fun things for special events, but oftentimes, I don’t allow myself enough time to do it properly, and things end up getting thrown together at the last minute. This year was no different in that regard. A couple of days before New Year’s Eve, I was thinking about how we might celebrate the evening. We already had the food planned and partially prepared (I’m not that much of a procrastinator! ;-). We had a lot of appetizers: hot wings, chicken tenders, Polish Mistakes, meatballs in barbecue sauce, Chex Mix, cheese and crackers and fruit. Since we had so many appetizers planned, I decided to go simple on the dessert: a 3-lb. bag of Peanut M&Ms, Hershey’s Kisses, and homemade ice cream (I chose this partly because I could make this in advance). Once I decided on the ice cream, I thought it would be fun to have an ice cream sundae bar, so we also had chocolate chips, peanuts and sprinkles, hot fudge sauce, chocolate syrup and I made peanut butter sauce. The punch, served in the infamous-but-still-in-one-piece punch bowl, was a grape juice/apple juice mix with Sprite for fizz. We brought several games down: Apples to Apples, Boggle, Scattergories, puzzles, etc. So far, so good, but I was still wondering what else we could do to make the evening special.
For some reason, I thought of a balloon drop and wondered if that would be feasible. I’m not known for being very original, so I reasoned that if I had thought of that, someone before me probably had, too. And sure enough, it only took about 2.3 seconds of searching on the Internet to find several websites that explained how to create a homemade balloon drop. Yes, there is a kit available on Amazon for $7, which included balloons, but remember: this was the day before New Year’s Eve, so I did what 95% of Americans do in this situation: ran to my local Wal-Mart. There I was able to find very cheap bridal tulle and also picked up about 40 balloons. I had no idea how much tulle I’d need, or how many balloons would be enough – it was all a guess. On a whim, I also picked up some noisemakers and those serpentine things you blow on, plus some paper balls to hang from the ceiling.
While planning on the details of the balloon drop, it occurred to me that most years, the majority of the family (including me!) falls asleep before midnight, and would miss the (hopefully) elaborate balloon drop. Then I remembered hearing about a New Year’s Eve celebration for children at the Children’s Museum (State Museum?) where they celebrated midnight at 8:00. Sounded like a good idea to me! So, we decided on 9:00 pm. On a whim, during the afternoon on New Year’s Eve, I looked up what countries around the world hit midnight at 9:00 EST. The first one I found was the South Sandwich Islands. Now a friend who is a veteran mom and a much better planner than I am told me that her family usually does this, and they also research the countries ahead of time and serve dishes and learn about the culture of the country they’re celebrating the New Year with. I think this is a great idea, but again – this was the afternoon of the celebration, so no time for that.:-) I couldn’t tell you anything about the South Sandwich Islands, but I’m sure it’s a lovely place, and we were celebrating the start of new year right along with them at 9:00 EST!
In spite of all the last-minute planning, it all pulled together somehow! After a lively dinner with lots of toasting, we still had about an hour and a half of game playing before “midnight.” We decided we would wait until after the balloon drop to have the ice cream sundaes, partly because we were too full to eat anything else, but also because we wanted something fun to cap off the big countdown. We found a countdown online and displayed it on our big computer monitor in the kitchen. The kids had a lot of fun running in and checking to see how much time we had left, and it really ramped up the excitement level.
(We eventually figured out how to display the countdown in a more logical way. :-)
With just a few minutes to go, we all headed into the kitchen for the countdown. We still had no idea if the balloon drop would actually work. Some of the websites suggested making a small-scale version and testing it out ahead of time, but again – not feasible for us. But, oh were they excited as we started counting down from 10, 9, … When we hit zero, Mick and I each pulled on our respective ends of yarn – and sure enough – the balloons all started dropping! I think I was so surprised it actually worked that I stopped pulling for a few seconds. So, the last half of my balloons came out several seconds after Mick’s, but it was still a very nice effect. Taking pictures and videos was also a last-second thought, which involved me practically tossing Rachel the camcorder, while Courtney grabbed the camera. Thankfully, we have some pretty good footage from both! Thank you, girls!
We finished up with the ice cream sundaes, followed by more games.
At some point, I did fall asleep in front of the fireplace (no surprise there) and the kids ended up watching a Columbo episode with Mick. (Columbo is their newest addiction – we've borrowed my Dad’s DVD set and they’ve probably made their way through about 4 episodes so far. :-D )
At the end of it all, we felt like the younger ones had a better idea of the excitement of New Year’s Eve, we made some fun memories and hopefully, some new traditions!
Happy New Year!
