25+ Meaningful & Fun New Year’s Family Traditions You’ll Love

Do you need fun family tradition ideas for New Year’s? Here are 25+ amazing options for both New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Family-friendly and guaranteed to create lifelong memories for young and old alike! Keep reading for inspirational ideas for new year’s traditions for the whole family! Welcome 2022 with your favorite people!

How to Celebrate the New Year with Family

The start of a new year is an exciting time. There’s something about letting go of the previous year and having a fresh start that is so good for the soul.

A time for a re-do. To reflect on the past year, make changes for the upcoming year, and do better the next time around.

And this is something that is so special when it’s also done as a family.

Ringing out the old year and ringing in the new with fun and meaningful family traditions is the way to go, a great way to begin a new trip around the sun.

Family is so important – it’s everything, really – and these new year’s traditions can be significant rituals that you and your kids will remember forever.

New Year’s Eve traditions as well as ones for New Year’s Day offer lots of opportunities for new activities, quality time – bonding and fun for the whole family.

Below are some fun family traditions for New Year’s Eve and then New Year’s Day traditions you can try this year in 2022. Some ideas can be flip-flopped between the two, if that makes more sense for your family.

New Year’s Eve Family Traditions

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The last day of the year can be the best day of the year! Read on for some amazing ideas!

New Year’s Eve Slumber Party

This is super fun for grown ups and kids alike. Choose a spot in the living room or den to set up camp. If your Christmas tree is still up, camping next to it is extra magical!

Make special treats, get sleeping bags and pillows, and set up your own little campground indoors.

You can even set up tents or make tent forts to sleep in. Watch movies and play games until the big moment at midnight.

New Year’s Eve Countdown

This is such a fun New Year’s Eve family tradition, for young children and grown ups alike. It’s the perfect time to have some fun and laughs as well as meaningful reflection. There are some different ways you can do this.

Balloon Pop Activity

At each hour leading up to midnight (starting whenever you’d like – 6pm, 7pm, etc.), pop a balloon with a special activity written on a piece of paper inside.

You can use some of these activities inside your balloon – or you can just schedule a handful of these activities throughout the evening:

Play board games

Have a scavenger hunt (This one here is a super fun one that you has riddles to solve as clues!)

Sing karaoke

Have a dance party

Make a list of new year’s resolutions or goals and share them together.

Choose a focus ‘Word of the Year’ (and make a vision board to go with it, for extra fun!) as a family and as individuals. You can also get some personalized prints of your Word of the Year to remember and hang up in a coordinating set!

Record a family interview, with each person sharing their memories and highlights from the year. This printable can get you started with some questions! (This can also go in your time capsule – see New Year’s Day activities!)

Make a “Best of” list with cultural highlights of the year (movies, songs, TV shows, sporting events, etc.). Brainstorm to as a family to come up with your own list and share results.

Open up your family time capsule if you have one.

Scroll through the pictures and videos on your phone from the past year. Cast it to your TV if you’re able to!

If you’re looking for a whole slew of printable activities for your family to do together on New Year’s Eve, check out this New Year’s Eve free bundle that includes a New Year’s Bucket List, Coloring Pages, New Year’s Scavenger Hunt, Ideas for Movies to Watch and more!

Countdown Activity Bags

You can also have countdown activity bags. At each hour, each child gets to open a special bag with toys, treats, or different activities that are inside.

Time Zone Countdown

Follow a map and see which countries are celebrating the new year at that hour. For an extra fun activity, pick one of those countries and learn a fun fact from that area!

Countdown Chain

Make a paper chain representing each hour leading up until midnight. Pull off a link at the top of every hour until the new year.

Fill out a Memory Recap

For this activity, every family member fills out a fun questionnaire recalling personal experiences and memories from the last year. It’s a wonderful time to remember all of the favorite things from the prior year before dreaming about the next year.

Each person can also reflect on something they want to ‘leave behind’ with the old year passing.

You can also create this in the way of a family gratitude journal as well to put the emphasis on thankfulness, which is such a good thing for kids to experience on the regular.

Here’s another time you can open the family time capsule if you have one!

Have a Fancy Celebration

A new year’s celebration is perfect for fancying things up! Kid-friendly charcuterie boards are fun and fancy options as well as chocolate or cheese fondue! Make sure you have sparkling cider for a midnight toast in fancy plastic champagne glasses!

You can dress up and make all kinds of sparkly decorations. Sparklers, confetti, and noise makers all bring it up to big party levels!

New Year’s Traditions from Around the World

This is so fun since a new year is beginning all around the globe as the night goes on! Ahead of time, research some traditions of other countries and use some of them in your celebration. Here are a few:

Spain (Central and South America): Eat 12 grapes (1 for each month) at midnight to ward off bad luck. A little superstitious, but OK! We’ll go with it!

Russia: Redecorate your Christmas tree as a New Year’s tree.

Scotland: Sing “Auld Lang Syne” (all verses!) holding hands in a circle.

Latin America: Wear something yellow to invite success for the new year.

Last Photo of the Year

Take some fun family selfies and silly photos together as the ‘last photo of the year.’ Include photo booth props for extra fun!

Watch the Ball Drop at Times Square on TV

If you’re planning a night at home, this is an easy way to incorporate the passing from one year to the next, in community with the whole world! They also show new year’s celebrations around the world in different time zones.

Counting down as the clock from your own living room strike midnight never, ever gets old.

Bang Pots and Pans at Midnight

I totally remember doing this as a middle schooler! We ran out the front door into the neighborhood, up and down the street banging pots and pans shouting, “Happy New Year!”

It was so much fun to celebrate this way and go a little wild as a kid – it’s even a blast for the older kids! If your family knows the words to “Auld Lang Syne,” even better!

Pray in the New Year

This is something else I remember from being a little girl as a new years eve family tradition.W e often spent New Year’s Eve at church, we would often pray in the new year, beginning a few minutes before midnight and spending time praying together as we crossed into the next year. If watching the ball drop or running through the neighborhood doesn’t fit with your family vibe, this is such a meaningful way to begin a new year.

New Year’s Day Family Traditions

Here are some new year’s celebrations and traditions you can do the next day!

Make a Waffle Bar

Waffles are perfect for a new year’s breakfast or brunch. They are super- easy to make and you can serve them with so many toppings. Here are some delicious options to include:

Strawberries and blueberries

Almond butter or peanut butter

Nutella

Bananas

Chocolate chips

Mini M&Ms

Walnuts

Ice cream

Whipped cream

Marshmallow Fluff

Flavored syrup

So many creative and crazy possibilities. Just place the waffles and the toppings out and let the kids go wild and have fun with it!

Create a Family Time Capsule

Have the kids decorate a box with drawing, sticker, picture – whatever they like. Then have each family member place special items in the box that represent themselves, significant loves as well as a personal questionnaire about themselves (to be opened as one of your new year traditions!)

You can use these printables if you like having some organization and something of a system!

You can also choose to have each child make their own time capsule, if a joint one feels too confining!

It’s so fun to see how much has changed over the course of just twelve months. Speaking of change…

Take A New Year’s Day Family Picture

Kids and grown-ups change so much over a year. Having a family picture taken on Day 1 of a new year is a perfect tradition.

Keep it casual, in your PJs or you can coordinate outfits and make it more formal! The picture and the experience will always spark great memories of that day! You can add it to your time capsule as well!

(If you’re looking to take ‘official’ winter family photos, this post has all the tips you need!)

Make a Family Wish List

Have a conversation about what you’d like to do together as a family.

Maybe it’s eating together more. Maybe it’s more Saturday family days. Maybe it’s more special celebrations or volunteering opportunities. Maybe it’s going for walks after dinner. Maybe there are more family traditions you’d like to incorporate this year.

Give every family member a chance to share and contribute to what they’d like to see more (or less) of as a family this upcoming year. I guarantee the answers will be very telling!

You may also want to come up with a “Word of the Year” for the entire family.

For extra bonding, make a vision board with all of your wish list and family vision ideas!

Have a Potluck Brunch or Dinner

New Year’s Day probably isn’t the time to start the diet; give yourself one more day! Instead, ask friends and family over to join in on your good time and bring some food. Brunch grazing boards are a wonderfully casual option for this! It’s the perfect lazy day for watching football bowl games, movie marathons, making crafts, playing games – and of course, eating.

Fun Family Traditions for New Year’s You’ll Always Remember

Creating family traditions for New Year’s Eve as well as New Year’s Day is a great time to celebrate as well as create new memories with the family. Every year, the kids will look forward to participating in these significant and fun ideas, creating lifelong family memories.

Without a doubt, this will also inspire their own new year celebrations when they are adults and have their own families.

A time like this, together as family, is the best thing you can give to your kids. Meaningful traditions passed down from generation to generation. My friends, it does not get better than that.

If you try any of these ideas, I’d love to hear or see! Leave a comment here or on Pinterest – or tag me on Instagram @100affections!