New Year's Eve was unremarkable to me as a child. Then as a teenager and young adult it was one of the funnest holidays. Post marriage and children, it's been more of a struggle to find excitement on this holiday. It seems like a difficult holiday to accommodate children and adults together. And what about the sleep, or lack there of? After having children, sleep is a hot commodity. Why would I willingly stay up late?
This year I think I have found solutions to my dilemmas.
First, there must be good food. This is obvious. What is a holiday without good food?
Second, spend the holiday with fun adults and their fun children. It's like two mini parties in one: one for the kids and one for the "grown-ups." This New Year's Eve we had our good friends, The Cheneys, over. They have three kids all about the same age as my kiddos, which works out well.
Third, have a plan, but be flexible. (This is actually my resolution for this year. I think it will eliminate much of my grumpiness. I
always have an agenda and it
never works as planned. Duh, I have kids. It seems to be the sole cause of my irritability. So here's to flexibility!) I used an idea I had found on Pinterest to pop a balloon each hour. In the balloons were slips of paper with different activities to do. So our 6 p.m. balloon said, "Eat dessert." 7 p.m. said, "Have a dance party." At 8 p.m., "Play a game." The 9 p.m. balloon slip said, "Pop your confetti poppers." "Do karaoke" came at 10 p.m. "Make a toast," with sparkling cider came next, and the midnight balloon said, "Make some noise!"
The dance party didn't actually have much dancing. I was putting away dinner so I couldn't bust my moves and Cayben was protesting because I didn't have any "pop music." The kids decided to make their own music. Braden had his Paper Jams guitar with him and Cayben and Embrie have little acoustic guitars, so the kids put on a rock concert.
After that we played games. The kids played with letter puzzles and a memory game, and adults played Catch Phrase. It's one of my favorites.
At 9:00 p.m. we braved the cold long enough to pop our confetti poppers outside. That was followed by karaoke and a few toasts.
Here's a funny little side note: this morning Cayben said, "Mom. We forgot to do our toast!" After a little confusion on my part and some questioning I realized Cayben had a little confusion on his part and thought we would be eating toast. We worked it out.
Anyway, I didn't know if our friends had planned on staying up until midnight, and I wasn't even sure I wanted to stay up that late. The kids' started getting tired so we sped up the balloon popping and ended the party around 10:45. It was a lot of fun.
For the fourth and final solution, keep your kids up with you so they sleep in with you the next day. Or better yet, go to sleep when your tired. It will be the new year when you wake.
P.S. I actually made it to midnight this year. I'm an animal.
