Celebrating New Year’s

New Year’s Eve and Day are probably my second-favorite holidays, right after Halloween. I know that resolutions are kind of a cliché, but I love the feeling of a new beginning—a chance to start everything new. Maybe that’s why I love Halloween so much, too (aside from the obvious reasons); it’s the Celtic New Year. What do you and your family do to celebrate the New Year? Here are a few things that we do.

Noise-making. Gotta make some noise to frighten away the evil spirits and welcome the New Year! We bang on pots and pans per the traditions of my youth, and then we set off fireworks at night just because Indy loves them. Wood Sprite gets poppers, too. Sometimes we’ll even do the ones with long strings of confetti inside and watch them spin on the ceiling fan!

Movies. Every year Indy and I watch It’s a Wonderful Life, and we watch Rudolph’s Shiny New Year as a family. This year Wood Sprite may even be ready to watch the former with us, since we saw it during a play production last year and she really enjoyed it.

Eat grapes. We eat grapes at midnight for luck (for fun, really) and drink lots of grape juice and sparkling wine.

Coutdown. Wood Sprite has only stayed up for one countdown so I don’t know if she’ll make it or not. Indy and I like to snuggle and watch the ball drop, though we’ll be missing Dick Clark. 

So how do you and yours ring in the New Year?

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia