New Year's Eve and Day ideas ...

New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day marks an end and a beginning. These days offer some fun possibilities to celebrate that ending and beginning. Below are some ideas that might trigger a thought for you … blessings to you and yours in this new year … Karen


• write a note, individually or as a family, and tuck it away in the boxes as you pack away the Christmas decorations … speak of the events of the past year and your family prayers for the New Year … read your letter next year, together, when you re-open the Christmas decorations … reflect upon how God has answered your prayers during the past year … (it might be fun to keep these notes from year to year) …

• plan a family dinner to talk about the past year … what happened, what you wanted to accomplish and did, what you learned, happy and sad events, what you look forward to in the New Year …

• keep a family journal and list the events of the past year … add to the journal each New Year’s Eve …

• tell each other your dreams for the New Year … discuss how family members can help one another reach their goals for the upcoming year …

• share your favorite event from the past year …

• pick a family member’s name out of a party hat and tell your wishes for that person for the coming year …

• plan to eat black-eyed peas for “good luck” in the coming new year … a fun New Year’s legend …

• create a family time capsule (a five-gallon bucket with lid) … each family member adds a small memento in that bucket on New Year’s Eve telling why he/she put that item in the bucket … bucket is sealed and stored until the next New Year’s Eve when items are again added (no peeking into it each year) … open at a future reunion for a “bucket of memories” … perhaps when kids are grown …

• print your New Year’s party initiation and paste it to the inside of a paper party blower

• have a family New Year’s Eve party … celebrate with the same families every year … even when the young children become adults with their own children …

• think of ways your family or your neighborhood might serve in the new year … collect food for a local food drive, donate time to help clean up a playground …

           ... and my personal New Year’s prayer that I will share with you …

                             Dear Heavenly Father ...

          for this New Year I pray I might have more “more” …

                               and more “less” …

                        more peace … less friction …

                  more hope … less discouragement …

                         more love … less division …

                         more joy … less grumbling …

                        more faith … less disbelief …

                     more gratefulness … less whining …

                        more service … less selfishness …

              more moving forward … less standing still …

                         more awe … less ho-hum …

                       more giving … less spending …

                   more forgiveness … less grudges …

                     more inclusion … less exclusion …

                     more kindness … less apathy …

                     more commitment … less wavering …

                                  more worship …

                                    more praise …

                      just simply more of You, Lord …

                                   and less of me …

                                                                             ©karen anderson