This post gives you 9 absolutely brilliant ideas for New Years Activities at Home that your family will love and cherish for years to come!
Last Updated: 8/26/24
I absolutely love New Years Eve and New Years. They are definitely the most underrated holiday duo in my opinion. Being a sentimental girlie, I just love having the opportunity to reflect on all the good and bad from the previous year, then looking forward to and making plans for the upcoming year.
Now that I have a family, though, I’ve realized that the classic American New Years traditions don’t really suit families with kids! Wanting to still harness the magic and power of New Years but in a family-friendly way, I compiled this list of 9 of the best New Years activities at home to celebrate this year.
I truly love all of these ideas and can’t wait to incorporate them with my small family this year. Hopefully, many of these will become traditions that create lasting memories for years to come.
There’s a little something for everyone on this list. I sincerely hope you find the right option to celebrate with your family so the holiday spirit doesn’t have to end after Christmas!
New Years Activities at Home for 2024-25
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1. Make a 2024 Photo Album
When I was a girl, I spent so much time nose deep in my family’s photo albums. Whenever I couldn’t sleep, I would pull them out and study each picture until I got tired.
I absolutely love family photo albums and hate how they’re going out of style! We think “well I have the pictures in my phone,” but how often do your kids or family members have access to your phone?
Family photo albums make memories shareable and relivable. Walgreens has an incredibly easy photo printing app. All you do is select and upload the photos you’d like to print into the app, then choose the closest store near you to have them printed at.
Have the photos picked up before New Years Eve and spend the night as a family assembling your 2023 photo album! As pictures are pasted in the pages, memories will resurface and let the nostalgia flow.
2. Record Year Recap “Interviews”
Have you ever seen the Billie Eilish yearly Vanity Fair Interviews? If you haven’t, your kids probably have!
Essentially, the singer Billie Eilish interviewed with Vanity Fair on the same day every year for 6 YEARS! The questions are similar and it’s so interesting to watch the singer reflect on how she has grown and matured.
I’m obsessed with the idea of starting this tradition with your own family. Write out a set of interview questions for your kids and partner, then set them in front of your phone to answer the questions. Your kids will love playing “celebrity” and being interviewed on camera!
How adorable will it be to see how they’ve grown over the years? Ask questions like “What are you hoping to learn in 2025?” or “How would you like to better yourself in 2025?” Then the following year, check back in with the previous interview and see if they achieved their goals!
When it comes to New Years activities at home, I know for a fact that this one will be a quick water works producer in my house. Just imagine watching all the recaps a decade from now when all the kids are grown up!
3. Have a Family Dance Party to Spotify Wrapped
Spotify Wrapped season is my FAVORITE season! It’s so fun to see what everyone has been binge listening to over the year.
If you’re unfamiliar, the music app Spotify creates a playlist for their users in January with all their most played songs from the previous year. I love listening to my wrapped playlist every year and associating different songs with memories.
Borrow the phones of the Spotify users in your house to connect to a bluetooth speaker and blast their wrapped playlists! Everyone can dance, sing, and share not only their memories, but their music tastes with the family.
I grew up in a very musical family and music was always my favorite way to connect with my siblings and parents. This is such an easy way to tap into the minds of your family and understand them a little better through their music preferences.
4. Cheers with Sparkling Cider
Making a toast with sparkling cider may seem lame to some, but I remember so vividly as a kid feeling VERY special when drinking sparkling cider. Something about the bottle looking similar to champagne made me feel so adult.
Pop a bottle of NA bubbly and use the GOOD china (AKA actual champagne glasses) to make the night feel extra special for your little ones. Go around the room and let everyone give a toast to the New Year!
Maybe provide a prompt like “Give a cheers to the moment you laughed the hardest in 2023” to get the ball rolling on some hilarious reminiscent conversation. I loved playing fancy as a kid and nothing makes a kid feel more special than being let in on the adult traditions for a night for New Years activities at home!
5. Make a Paper Mache Times Square Ball to “Drop”
If your family is particularly crafty, try recreating your own New Years Eve Ball Drop! Since the ball is going to “drop” at midnight anyway, it doesn’t have to be perfect and can just be a fun messy project for everyone to work on.
Buy a pack of globe lanterns, colorful tissue paper, and some Modge Podge for an easy and affordable DIY craft! You could even take some of the out door Christmas lights leftover from the holidays to fill the lanterns and place them outside at midnight.
When everyone “drops” or “illuminates” their New Years balls, play Auld Lang Syne and give kisses and hugs to all your loved ones. All the fun and flash of New Years in times square from the comfort of your own home!
Pro Tip: snag pictures every year of each family member with their paper mache New Years Eve ball to see how the family’s artistic skills improve.
6. Play “Flashbacks” on the Big Screen
I am SO EXCITED to incorporate this as a New Years tradition in my home this year. We recently purchased a phone to HDMI adapter that allows you to display your phone screen on a television screen.
Ask everyone in the family to make a folder of their favorite video and photo memories from the year on their phone, then take turns displaying your memory albums on the TV for everyone to watch!
Throughout the year we all capture different memories of each other on our phones, and even if you frequently revisit those memories, what are the odds that your family will ever see those videos again?
I just can’t wait to get all cozy next to my loved ones on the couch and watch everyone’s memory albums play on the big screen together. The conversations this will start are sure to be stellar. Prepare to stay up even later than you were expecting to!
7. Christmas Tree Bonfire
For the families with real Christmas trees, creating a tradition of burning the tree after the holidays would be so sweet and fun. It’s a symbolic wrap up of not only the holiday season, but the year as a whole!
Something about bonfires brings everyone together and creates such a cozy atmosphere. Obviously the climate you’re in will dictate how doable an outdoor bonfire is in the dead of winter, though I grew up in Minnesota and LOVE a winter bonfire.
If anyone has any unsavory memories from the year they’d like to leave in the past, invite them to burn any objects associated with the memory. God forbid any loved ones were lost in 2024, everyone could write a letter to that person and send it to them through the ashes.
Fires have so much symbolic power, so there are many opportunities to make a Christmas tree bonfire one of the most meaningful New Years activities at home this year.
8. Assemble a Family Photo Puzzle
Puzzles instantly make me think of the holiday season. You’re either from a puzzle family or you’re not, but it’s never too late to invite the puzzle tradition into your own home!
Puzzles make a great holiday activity because they have a certain magic of getting people to chat. One of the hardest things about having conversations with your family members is the potential awkwardness of just sitting in a room with nothing to do. Puzzles solve that problem!
They keep everyone engaged and away from their screens, crowded around the same table, providing busy work for your hands, which is the perfect potion to get people chatting.
Shutterfly has a feature on their website where you can upload a family photo and order it to be made into a puzzle then delivered to your door! Pick the best photo from 2024, assemble the puzzle on New Years, and frame the result to honor the memories.
9. “Prank Call” Family Members
It can be really hard to stay in touch with extended family members. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say “I call my grandparents just the right amount!”
New Years is a great time to reach out because it isn’t a travel heavy holiday. Meaning, most people will be home and sitting in their living rooms the same as you! Make calling the family fun for you and your kids by telling them it’s a “prank call”.
We don’t live in the age of anonymous phone calls anymore, but your kids don’t necessarily need to know that! Call grandma and tell your child to pretend they’re the police calling because grandma is being too rowdy!
They’ll love getting into character, grandma will absolutely cherish the phone call, and everyone gets reconnected again before the year starts in a fun and lighthearted way.
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Love the ideas! We created many great memories…