How to plan a memorable New Year’s Eve party

There’s no better feeling than closing the holiday season with an unforgettable New Year celebration with family and friends. But New Year’s Eve often sneaks up on you amidst all the preparations for Christmas and Thanksgiving festivities. Fortunately, this blog post will help you in planning out your next New Year’s Eve party so that everything sails smoothly. 

Whether you are planning something intimate with just close friends or family, or something grandiose, you can host a memorable and fun party at your home this year. How will you do that? Read on ahead for some useful tips and tricks that will help you host a great party to celebrate the arrival of the new year.

Keep it simple with the food and drinks

We often like to go overboard with the food and drinks whenever we host a party. But for New Year’s Eve, it is important to realize that most people would have already had huge festivities during the holiday season already. So, you should put on your creative hat and think of how you can keep the food and drinks part simple, without serving a full course dinner for everyone. 

Everyone is looking to enjoy themselves at the last party of the year, so try to keep food items that are simple to eat and easy to serve so it’s a win-win for you and the guests. Here are a few tips on you can go about foods and drinks during the New Year Eve’s party:

Set up a bar

Setting up a special drink bar is a great idea to get started with your party. It is also a good way to add some theme and fun to your party since you can personalize it in a number of ways including:

• Setting up a DIY drinks menu where you place different drink recipes and ingredients on the bar and guests can prepare their own drinks.
• Drinking games where people can play games like “Never Have I Ever” or “Truth or Drink”. You can get creative ideas for how you can host drinking games here.

Make sure you keep both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks to entertain all kinds of guests. Also, you should add in a water bar and some fruits, as well, so guests can keep themselves hydrated.

Prepare small, one-bite dishes

After consuming all the heavy food during the earlier festivities, guests are likely to be looking for something light and delicious at the New Year’s Party. This is why you should look to keep your party menu restricted to simple, small bite dishes that create less of a mess and make it simple for you to serve and refill. 

To help you in picking out a menu, here is a list of small-bite items that you can consider adding to your party menu:

• Spinach dip
• Nachos and chips
• Sliders
• Fruit skewers
• Roasted vegetable skewers
• Sliders
• Stuffed mushrooms

For more ideas and recipes for bite-sized dishes, read this great guide from bon appétit.

Don’t go overboard with the decorations

Decorating is fun and it is often one of the most enjoyable parts of the party planning process. All of us want our party to look as glamorous and stylish as it can be, but it is important not to go overboard with all the decorations, especially if you are on a budget. 

You should keep it simple – a simple themed decoration that looks to create a feel-good environment. Here is how you can decorate for the party:

Decorate with balloons and signage 

Start your decorations with balloons – decorate your home with some shiny and silver balloons (either regular ones or printed ones with ‘Happy New Year’ written on them). You can either fill out the balloons in your party area or hang them near a clear wall so that they can double as a backdrop for photos too.

After adding in balloons, hang up signage with New Year’s quotes to add to the overall feeling for the new year. You can even have a custom canvas with messages from the guests to reiterate and give encouragement to everyone for the beginning of a new year.

Keep a wish jar for guests

If the custom canvas is not a piece of cake for you, you can also keep a wish jar for guests. This is a great way for guests to express their words and sentiments about the upcoming year, and they can do it anonymously, too! For this, you should decorate and paint mason jars around the New Year theme and place them on different tables and locations in the party area.

Ask guests to write their wishes and messages for the New Year on pieces of paper and then drop them in the wish jars around the party. At the end of the party, you can read all of the wishes aloud to give that extra feeling of intimacy and celebrations to everyone.

Add in noisemakers, props, and hats

It’s not much of a New Year’s party without all the noisemakers and props that help with the countdown. Put up a small, separate table at your party that has all the party horns, confetti poppers, sparklers, and other party accessories. Once the New Year comes closer, hand them out to guests so that you can countdown together and celebrate the arrival of the new year.

You can also add props such as printed paper glasses, masquerade masks, and top hats that are themed for the New Year. This adds to the overall theme of the party and makes for perfect photos throughout the night. 

Make sure you have enough entertainment for everyone

No one likes a boring party and this is the reason entertainment is at the heart of any party plan. People will often forget the decorations and food, but what stays with them is the memorable time that they spent with each other and the activities that they had. 

To help you in making sure there’s enough entertainment for everyone, here are various ideas on how you can add entertainment to your New Year’s Eve party:

• Games: Board games, drinking games, and casino games are all very popular at parties. If you have your own, then you just need to dust them off and keep them on a separate table during the party. If not, you can rent out such games from a local game store nearby.
• Photo Booth: A photo booth is often the center of attraction at all parties and this is why it is a must-have at your next New Year Eve’s party. You can add props as we mentioned earlier so people can choose what they want to wear or pose with. Here is an excellent guide from HGTV on how you can make your own photo booth at home.
• Music: The New Year celebration is unique and naturally, it also has a distinctive set of music tracks associated with it. You don’t want to make the environment gloomy by playing the wrong songs. First, take in preferences from your friends and guests. A good way to do this would be to ask in your party invite for guests to RSVP and mention their favorite songs. Once you have a list of guest-curated songs, pick out the best ones from those and add them to the playlist. If you are confused or don’t have enough options, you can pick from this list of New Year music tracks:
  • Abba: Happy New Year
  • A Great Big World: This is the New Year
  • Snoop Dogg: New Year’s Eve
  • U2 – New Year’s Day

Have a blast at your New Year’s Eve party

New Year’s Eve is a momentous occasion that marks the end of a year full of memories. It is fitting that the party you throw to bid farewell to the year is fun for you and for your guests. Remember, if you feel like party planning and management is a chore, then you are doing it wrong! Get help from friends, family, and others to make sure you don’t burn yourself out while hosting the party.

Another place you can take great help from is PosterMyWall. PosterMyWall is your one-stop solution for all your graphic design and digital content needs. If you are looking to make posters, greeting cards, flyers, invitations, or any kind of visual content for your New Year’s Eve party, you can do so quickly and easily with this tool.

For example, if you want to create eye-catching greeting cards and party flyer templates, you can check out the amazing Happy New Year greeting template available at PosterMyWall. All you need to do is customize it with a few simple clicks, and you’re good to go!