Suburban Bash: The Kind Of Lazy But Still Fun New Year's Eve Party

I meant to share our New Year's Eve party with you. This was the party that broke my back so to speak. There was the Holiday Progressive which left me invigorated and then all the last minute Christmas preparations I did, then Christmas dinner with my extended family, our trip to Chicago, followed by frantic de-Christmasing and preparations for 12 adults and 17 kids under nine to ring in the New Year. I was exhausted. I wanted it to be fun for the kids but to be honest I sort of wanted to throw a bunch of confetti at them and call it the New Year.

Still, it's not often kids get to stay up until midnight (or later if no one's killing each other) and I don't get to spend the first minutes with my best friends all the time so I wanted it to be reasonably special.

I made this event potluck-ish, emailing the guests while still in Chicago asking them to bring their own drinks and an appetizer to pass. I made just a vegetable tray with two dips, these really yummy Brussel Sprout, Bacon and Cheddar skewers (huge, huge hit both times I've made them).

Did they eat it?
Max and Maddie didn't try it.
Logan did and said, "I love these. Come to think of it, I've never tried a brussel sprout in my life!"

I just don't know where Maddie gets her inhibited taste buds from.

I also made batches of black eyed peas (I used this recipe) and put them in take out containers with tags Logan made explaining the custom. It's supposed to bring you good luck to eat black eyed peas on the first day of the New Year.

At the end of the night I forgot to pass them out as some guests left and was asleep by the time some other guests got tired of watching Logan play Guitar Hero and left at 2am. Still it was a cute idea. I ended up eating four servings by myself (no one in my family would try) so I should be very lucky this year.

So far Logan has gotten his first major illness in years and I remain healthy, so far anyway. He should have eaten the peas.

For the Holiday Progressive I bought white bags, sand and candles to make luminaria to line the sidewalk. I sort of overestimated the size of our lot (because to me it's the grandest property in all the land) and we have enough white paper bags to line the entire city. We decided to use them to line the walk up to the house just to make everything more festive.

To decorate inside I made it sort of kid themed because my friend Maggie brought me a box full of these awesome party decorations from Amsterdam. She got them at Hema and you love Hema. I don't care if you've never heard of it. You love it. Trust me. (When I went to the site and saw they have an online area, I had an aneurysm. I am now using a knitting needle to type because I can't feel my hands.

Only, it seems, though I'm no expert on the Dutch language, you can only order and pick up in store or have your stuff shipped within the Netherlands. WHICH IF I LIVED IN THE NETHERLANDS I WOULD BE LIVING INSIDE THE HEMA SO THIS DOESN'T HELP ME.)

Anyway, Maggie brought us all sorts of paper decorations and the best part is you can re-smoosh them together to use again! I'll show a picture of that when we get around to taking down the decorations. I thought we'd have to throw everything away after we used it, economical and earth-friendly.

Maddie wants to hang these cute vinyl flags in her room. We already hung the sign Maggie gave us in our office. It's this one, which means "Congratulations" but we make up something new every time we're down there. Sometimes it means, "Have sex!", other times it says, "Why don't you fold the laundry ever?" Gefeliciteerd is everything.

Look at these fine people enjoying a little Gefeliciteerd!

Here I'm playing charades with the kids, I got 'Gefeliciteerd' which is particularly hard to act out.

Here we are making party hats with foam sheets and foam stickers. Something you would think wouldn't be messy. Children are savages so it was actually quite messy. Plus I could not drink and help the kids with their hats. This was gefeliciteerd.

I went to bed around 1:00am, right after I got a glob of toothpaste in my hair while putting Maddie to bed. I thought that was a sign maybe it was time to close up shop. Logan didn't (of course) but instead lured my friend Andrea into the evil which is Guitar Hero III, she stayed until 2:00am and dreamed of guitar solos through the rest of the night. She might be downstairs right now, playing just one more.

The party was great, the kids were a little wild and next year I'll probably change just a few things. I will start midnight prep earlier, I was so frantic trying to get the kids their sparkling juice and the adults their champagne, oh and the bubble wrap spread out on the floor for the kids to stomp (huge hit, highly recommend for any party) at midnight, I missed the actual New Year almost entirely.

I hate to be a frantic hostess, I think it makes everyone feel guilty and ruins the party, so I'll need to be more organized next year.

If we're still here, the basement will hopefully be set up with a play area. They love it down there and it is so nice to have the kids on another floor. This house is (in my mind) twice as big as our old one but it seems like the kids just end up right on top of you no matter what the square footage.

Also, we'll skip confetti entirely. I always think I can handle the mess, "What's a little mess?! What's the point of having this great house if we can't have a few messes?"

Then for the next two weeks I'm sleeping with confetti and I'm blowing it out of my nose and the cats have it in their litter boxes and it's in every single room of the house and wet shoes smear it every where. It's just not worth it.

Next year we'll do something less messy, like finger painting.

I hope your New Year was Gefeliciteerd (also wonderful).

Comments

[Lara]

You are amazing! What great ideas! I love the bubble wrap and those brussel sprout thingies sound great. I like to roast sprouts with a little pressed garlic, thyme, olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Mmmm.... You are definitely right about it being a Southern tradition that you MUST have black-eyed peas on New Year's Day, for luck - in my family, we even "smush" some for the babies to eat (in the years that we have babies around). At my house, we make a dip out of them with bell peppers, onion, garlic, some olive oil and vinegar - serve it with Frito Scoops. You only have to eat one to ensure the good luck - not 366 of them - I think that could be fatal! I love you idea of making them as a party favor! You're so clever! Congrats - it looks like it was a really fun party and I'll definitely be trying the brussel sprout skewers.

[beanpaste]

What a great-looking party! I am suddenly filled with a deep, deep lust for Hema: those adorable pennants are killing me. Is this what Gefeliciteerd feels like?

[bigpikchur.blogspot.com]

I want to hang those flags in my room, too-- though they definitely won't match the House of Blues theme I have going on in here... I still want them; and I also want to have those amazing party ideas like you had, all of which makes me feel a bit like Veruca Salt, you know, a spoiled little gefeliciteerd!
Happy New Year and congrats on throwing one of the loveliest and liveliest looking NYE parties I've ever seen!
Jules
House of Jules

[Sisyphus]

I can see how this was frantic for you, but it also looks like it was a lot of fun.

By the way, we're having something like 12 adults and at least as many kids over next week for our first party/gathering of 2008. I really hope it goes well but I am not looking forward to cleaning the house from top to bottom. I hope our party is as good as yours are. This is a little bit new for us.

[madge]

Wow. Until just this minute I was dreading with every fiber of my being my imminent trip to Amterdam for a family wedding (Who wants to bring a 1 and 4 year old to Northern Europe in the dead of winter? Not. Me.)

But, YAY! Hema! Now I am suddenly invigorated by all the Gefeliciteerd (possibilities).

Also, you are my hostess hero. Bubble wrap!?! Genius.

[saplej]

Hema has a whole section for people who are bad en bed... Seems kinda funny....

http://www.hema.nl/nl-NL/winkel/Naturally%20HEMA/Bad%20en%20Bed.aspx?navmethod=sitemap

[Becky]

You're going to get a ton of comments, but that bubble wrap on the floor was probably the best idea I've ever heard of! Too bad my daughter is 17 and probably not interested anymore. Wait, on second thought, I'm sure they probably would enjoy doing that in some crazy teenage form! Happy New Year!

[Melissa Summers]

Wayne! I could punch myself!!! I left off my best tip! The day of the party I barely cleaned. We wiped the bathrooms with a clorox wipe and vacuumed the floors and tidied up. But nothing else.

Then, when the party was over and the house was trashed I didn't have that horrible feeling of all my hard work pre-party being destroyed.

Plus with all the juice and (other) beverages on the floor, the job of washing the floor was actually quite rewarding.

DON"T KILL YOURSELF CLEANING PRE PARTY!!!! It will make you never want to have a party again!!!!!

[Sisyphus]

Noted! Clorox, vacuum, tidy. And hide the laundry, probably.

[BWChicago]

Kids do want to be right on top of you whatever the house size. About a year and a half ago we moved from a regular Chicago 2-bedroom apartment to a three-bedroom with (gasp!) a little upstairs. And were do my two kids (7 and 3) play? In the 6x2 space between the kitchen island and the oven. On top of my feet. Usually this makes me happy because I know it doesn't matter that we don't have the big regular house with a designated playroom. Because they would still just play whereever I am. It's a love thing.

[BigBro]

Guitar Hero, et al, is like video crack!! Someone brought it to the firehouse and it has subsequently been banned due to the huge decrease in motivation toward productive things.

[bgirl]

The same thing happened at our kid-friendly Halloween party - except with Dance,Dance,Revolution.

This was a really good post - almost inspiring me to throw another party soon. Almost.

[Ariel]

I will probably never throw a New Year's Eve party, but every year we do a New Year's Day black-eyed peas party. I make a huge pot of BEPs, cornbread, collard greens, and the best Mac & Cheese in the universe (recipe at epicurious). And there are mimosas, of course. This year I made a couple of Jell-o side dishes, which were a surprise hit. Guests bring dessert; we once had a pie contest with awesome prizes. It's super laid-back, tons of fun and good hangover food.

[Melissa Summers]

We have to come down and bring ours. You'd be surprised at how good Maddie is at it.

[MommyTime]

Our New Year's Eve had fewer people but more instruments...we are now addicted to the crack that is Rock Band. And since we started with Guitar Hero, we have TWO guitars, which with the drums and mic (+ two friends and 3 bottles of wine) really does make quite a band. And, oh, we sound nice. If by "nice" you mean "better than a dozen raccoons fighting over the bananas we hung in a tree to prevent raccoon invasions while camping." Our party didn't look nearly as nice as yours. But I'll bet it sounded nicer. ;)

[MommyTime]

PS I did mean that your party actually looked lovely--shouldn't have put the word "nice" in that sentence after the bit about the raccoons. :) And I dig the hardly-pre-cleaning tip. A suggestion for Wayne: repurpose your home office as a "toss stuff in and close the door" room. I did. Less work gets done, but cleaning is a whole lot easier.