New Year's Party Planning Tips
For a New Year's to remember choose a unique location or transform a room into a festive setting. Choose a theme, allowing your invitations and decorations to set the stage, and remember to take the time for the finishing touches - lighting, food, and party favors.
Invitations
  • Hand deliver your party details rolled up in a small wine bottle.
  • Write your party details on the "tail" of a party blow out.
  • Unroll a party hat, write information on the inside, fold and send.
  • Blow up a latex balloon, write party details in permanent marker, deflate balloon to send.
  • Enclose confetti in the envelope.
  • Take a picture of a clock with its hands pointing to midnight - write details on the back of the picture.
Decorations
  • Spread confetti and serpent throws over the tables. Hang crepe streamers from the ceiling.
  • Using a balloon drop kit, fill an assortment of latex balloons with air & hang from ceiling. At midnight, pull cord and have your own balloon drop.
  • Fill deflated balloons with large spoonfuls of confetti by inserting a funnel into the mouth of each balloon and sliding the confetti inside. Fill balloons with helium. Tie the balloons with colorful ribbon and let them float up to the ceiling. At midnight, pull down a balloon and pop it.
  • Candles or dim lights will add to the festive atmosphere.
  • New Year's Eve just wouldn't be New Year's Eve without plenty of horns, hats and confetti!

Ideas for New Year's Eve that will keep the kids busy and hopefully out of mischief.

  • Party Hats:  You need; glitter, glue, scissors,  and paper.
    1. Fold paper into a cone and glue along the seam.  
    2. Round the bottom edge.
    3. Squirt glue in a design around the hat.
    4. Over newspaper, sprinkle the glitter.

  • Noise makers:  You need:  Colored paper or wrapping paper, glue or tape, scissors, toilet paper roll, yarn and beans or rice.
    1. Measure paper to go around the toilet paper roll making each side about 3 inches longer on each end.
    2. Glue the paper onto the roll leaving the ends open.
    3. Tie one end with the yarn tightly.
    4. Add rice or beans through the open end.
    5. Tie the last end tightly with yarn.
    Shake!

  • Make Streamers; You need: Crepe paper or tissue paper. yarn.
    1. Cut different length strips of paper.
    2. Tie together at one end with yarn.
    3. Hang in the doorways!  Have fun!

Run off the color sheets and have fun! 

 
Party favors and gifts
  • PERSONALIZED WINE BOTTLE: print striking personalized wine labels celebrating the millennium. Include guests' names, the date, and the party location. Steam off labels from bottles of good red wine and replace them with your own labels. Guests can then keep the wine for the future.
  • DECORATIVE CHAMPAGNE GLASSES: take plastic champagne flutes - write your guest's name, hot glue "gems", add a touch of color with a swirl or two of glass paint. Each unique design will help guests keep track of their drink throughout the evening.
 

Themes
THE PAJAMA PARTY - since most people spend the better part of the holidays squeezing into trendy black outfits, why not encourage them to wear pj's to your New Year's Eve party.
  • Invitations: Write party details on a miniature pillow.
  • Decor: Pillows and sleeping bags on the floor board games and decks of cards around the room.
  • Food: Finger sandwiches, pizza, chips 'n dip, popcorn and drinks. Or serve a breakfast buffet right after midnight - after all it's morning.
  • Party Favors: Special pillowcases or blankets, printed toothbrushes.

21ST CENTURY PARTY - Incorporate ideas of what the future will bring.
  • Invitations: Write party information on silver or gold stars.
  • Decor: Hang glow-in-the-dark planets and stars from the ceiling; replace ordinary lightbulbs with blue colored ones; balloon bouquets of blue, silver, gold, white balloons incorporating mylar moons & stars. Music from 2001: Space Odyssey.
  • Food: space food (i.e. beef jerky, instant mashed potatoes,Tang) or just keep it simple with chips 'n dips, veggies 'n dip, etc. to graze on.
  • Party Favors: glow in the dark.

 

What to do at Midnight?
  • Watch the countdown in Times Square on TV.
  • Move your party to another location (beach, field, yard, rooftop).
  • Watch fireworks (displays are scheduled just about everywhere).
  • Invite your guests to bring objects to create a time capsule.
  • Video tape everyone's New Year's resolutions (show it at next year's party).
  • Plant a tree.
  • Break a piņata filled with all sorts of fun gifts.
  • Blow bubbles.
  • Clank pots and pans.
Champagne 101: From Pop to Pour
  • Remove outer foil wrap and untwist but do not remove the wire cage. Keep a thumb on top of the bottle to prevent an unexpected pop of the cork.
  • Cover the cork and wire cage with a cloth. Holding the bottle at a 45-degree angle creates less pressure in a bottle's neck. Gently twist the cork (with its wire cage) in one direction and the bottle in the opposite direction. The cork should ease smoothly from the bottle with a delicate pop, not a loud bang.
  • Pour a splash of champagne slowly down the side of a champagne flute. Allow the bubbles to diminish, then slowly fill again.
Make Special Plans for the Kids
Special tribute and plans should be made when children are included. Here are some tips:
  • Provide a special meal area for kids, such as a den, porch, balcony, or a special area of the party room.
  • Decorate the area with balloons and festive year 2000 touches (streamers, confetti, party favors). Maybe blend in their own theme, such as space - Alien or Star Wars.
  • Provide kid friendly seating: small furniture, picnic-style with plastic tablecover on the floor, Japanese style on pillow seats around a low coffee table.
  • Prepare special foods: mini-sized portions, individual pizzas, finger sandwiches. Special ice cream treats or a sundae bar are a big hit for kids of all ages.
  • Settings: Colorful themed paper or plastic tableware, bright tablecovers and place mats personalized with kids' names make a definite statement of each child's importance.
  • Plan activities for children: craft projects, such as party hats, candy necklaces - made by kids worn by adults; hired entertainment, dances, carnival concession-type activities, videos.
  • Set clocks ahead and have a special New Year's Eve celebration oriented for the children.
Additional Party Smart Tips
Hosting a New Year's party assures that you will be with those special people when the Year 2000 begins. PartySmart.com wants to help you, the Party Smart host, to plan a party that is not only fun but safe for everyone. So keep the following tips in mind when serving alcohol at your party:
  • Always serve food, especially high protein foods, which slow the rate at which the body absorbs alcohol.
  • Supply non-alcoholic beverages for your guests too.
  • Stop serving alcohol about one hour before the party is scheduled to end. Emphasize non-alcoholic drinks and high protein food toward the end of the party - only TIME can help someone sober up.
  • If a guest has over-indulged, TAKE the car keys away, call a cab or have a non-drinking guest drive him/her home.