33 New Year’s Eve Party Ideas and Themes for a Festive Celebration
If you’re ready to leave the past year behind, welcome the new year with a legendary party. Whether you’re feeling fancy with ball gowns and bowties or want to relax with your closest friends, we share our favorite New Year’s Eve party ideas below to help you ring in the new year.
Pop Culture Party
A New Year’s Eve party is a way to celebrate with friends while reflecting on the previous year. If you’re hosting a gathering, throw a pop culture themed party. Send out invites and ask guests to dress up as their favorite pop culture moment or event from the last year. Have a costume show-and-tell, and hand out a prize to the person who guesses the most pop culture costumes correctly.
Sparkly Drink Stirrers
Simple touches can really elevate a party. This DIY drink stirrer is easy to make and nearly free using items from around your house. To make, glue gold Christmas tinsel to wood skewers to dress up everyone’s drinks.
Murder Mystery Celebration
The Spruce / Margot Cavin
Perfect for friends who love game night, host a murder mystery party for your New Year’s Eve gathering. You can purchase a ready-made murder mystery kit, or you can create your own by writing clues and assigning characters to your friends. Make sure to have plenty of snacks and drinks available to keep everyone fueled for the night.
Movie Night
If a quiet night in with family or a few close friends is more your style, make it a special occasion with a movie night. Include a popcorn bar with homemade popcorn, and offer toppings like chocolate candies, chocolate pretzels, and nuts to enjoy while watching your favorite flick. You could even make it a themed movie marathon and choose drinks and snacks to match.
Snowflake Dinner Party
Make your New Year’s Eve celebration unforgettable with a snowflake themed dinner party. Transform your space by decorating the ceiling and chairs with beautiful snowflake Christmas ornaments, and serve seasonal fare. It’s a great excuse to keep some of your wintery holiday decor up a while longer.
A Grand Entrance
Why not set the tone for your New Year’s Eve celebration even before your guests enter your home? This stunning balloon arch and snowflake-shaped balloons and decor will have your guests excited from the moment they walk in.
Art Deco Decor
The Spruce / Margot Cavin
Traditionally, New Year’s Eve parties have a gold, silver, and black color scheme. If you want a traditional party with a twist, add Art Deco-themed decor in this color scheme like bowtie photo props, and ask guests to wear 1920s-themed outfits
Winter-Themed Centerpiece
If you’re going for an elegant dinner celebration, don’t forget the centerpiece. Glass or ceramic round ornaments make the perfect candleholders. Place them in a row on a tray, and add faux greenery for a beautiful addition to your table.
Metallic Food Labels
Adding labels to your food trays can lend a more refined look to your party, especially if you have calligraphy skills or good penmanship. By using edible or food-safe metallic markers, you can transform a simple food tray into a sophisticated addition to your New Year’s Eve celebration.
Disco Ball Mantel
If you have a mantel, it’s a good opportunity to go all out with your decor. This mantel features several disco balls in varying sizes and other glam decor like silver garland and star decor.
A Glam Dessert Table
A New Year’s Eve party is a great excuse to dress up in your most sparkly attire. Ask guests to dress formally, and make or buy desserts that are just as glam. A cluster of gold confetti-filled balloons and disco ball cups will take the party up a notch.
All-White Party
For an elegant and refined aesthetic, consider a monochromatic theme for your New Year’s Eve party. Decorate with all-white decor such as garland, balloons, and serving trays, and serve all white food to complete the look. Though for a more unique New Year’s Eve party idea, choose a color besides white: pink, metallics, tie-dye—whatever strikes your fancy.
Disco Ball Christmas Tree
A white Christmas tree is the perfect blank canvas to decorate for your New Year’s Eve party. Replace all the Christmas ornaments with disco ball ones for a glam look that makes a great photo backdrop.
Carnival Theme
The Spruce / Margot Cavin
Take it back to your childhood with a Carnival-themed party. Serve popcorn, funnel cakes, and other traditional carnival food. Set up simple games like balloon darts, ring toss, and cornhole. And don’t forget the prizes, hand out tickets to winners for them to redeem for prizes.
NYE Advent Countdown
In lieu of an advent calendar, include an hourly advent countdown to midnight (it’s easy to DIY one). Include one pouch for every hour of your party for guests to open. Fill each pouch with little gifts or even ice breaker questions or fun activities to do during your gathering.
Mobile Bar Truck
Add something new and fun to your party like a food truck or a mobile bar service. Many cities have vintage mobile beer trucks or campers that bring a charming, unexpected touch to a party. Make it a special event by having guests dress their best and offering local craft beers from a truck.
Paper Plate Backdrop
Colorful plates hooked together make an affordable, one-of-a-kind photo or table backdrop for your party. The plates resemble confetti, making it the perfect addition to a New Year’s Eve party.
Spruced-Up Cocktails
No New Year’s party is complete without some Champagne or fancy sparkling cocktails or grape juice. Take it up a notch by adding some edible gold leaf to each drink. Nothing says “Let’s ring in the New Year” like a touch of edible bling.
New Year Party Favor Ornaments
Ornaments aren’t just for Christmas. Gift guests a clear ornament filled with confetti and glitter, as well as encouraging and uplifting messages for the New Year.
A Year-in-Review Collage
The New Year isn’t just about popping a bottle of Champagne and getting a midnight kiss. It’s a good time to reflect on your previous year and look ahead to a new beginning. To commemorate the year, create a collage with friends of things and events that made an impact on your year. Get a big poster board or cork board, or even just clear off a wall and provide wall-safe adhesive, and ask everyone to bring a photo or something representative of a memory to add to the collage. It’s a great way to get creative and appreciate moments spent with friends.
Repurposed Christmas Decor
Your Christmas decor can serve dual purpose as table decor for your winter solstice or New Year’s Eve party. The greenery on this table and above sets the tone for a quiet dinner in to ring in the new year.
Disco Ball Place Setting
Disco ball Christmas ornaments and gold gift tags serve great purpose as place cards for New Year’s Eve. To make it more personalized to each guest, cut out the letter of their first initial and glue to the tag.
Snow Globe Kits
Make your New Year’s celebration fun for the whole family. Set up a craft station for the kids with DIY fairy wands made from felt and wood dowels, and Mason jars filled with items to make a snow globe.
Tiny Party Hats
Make adorable party hats using gold and cream cardstock and top them with white pompoms. The hats are perfect for both kids and adults and will be a hit at your party.
Lollipop-Themed Bar Cart
If you’re throwing a party for both kids and adults, a lollipop theme party is sure to be fun for everyone. Fill your bar cart with colorful treats and desserts instead of libations, and finish the look with a New Year’s themed wreath decorated with mini disco ball ornaments and paper hearts.
Gold Theme
The Spruce / Candace Madonna
If you’re going for an all-gold theme, look around your house to decorate. A gold wreath, snowflake garland, and a gold paper Christmas tree make the perfect decor for this bar cart. Swap the places of any gold-colored decorative pieces you have so that the gold ones are in the party area and all the other colors are relegated to closed rooms.
Black & White Ball
The Spruce / Margot Cavin
New Year’s Eve is a great excuse to gather your friends for a party party. If you’re wanting a formal affair, keep it classy with a black and white dinner party theme. Decorate with white plates, black candles, and personalized name cards.
Midnight Brunch
Make your first meal of the new year great with a brunch with friends right at midnight. Serve light breakfast pastries and herbal teas on your best dinnerware to make it an extra special event. A midnight brunch is a great idea for parents who spend hours hosting a kids’ party until the 12 a.m. pickup or bedtime—it’s can be a special tradition for just the two of them.
Game Night
The Spruce / Margot Cavin
Ring in the new year by hosting game night with friends. (This is ideal for hosts who don’t want to organize a murder mystery party, but still want to get a little competitive.) Have each friend bring their favorite game, and play as many games as you like. At the end of the night, whoever wins the most games can take a game of their choosing home with them, and other guests can swap games with each other so everyone can take a new game home to play in the new year.
Casino Night
The Spruce / Margot Cavin
Host a casino night with friends. From blackjack to poker, set up all of your favorite casino games. You can either have every guest contribute money into a pool for winners to take home, or exchange chips for prizes and gifts. Include a few easy games, like Left Right Center, that can be learned in minutes.
Fondue Party
Elise Bauer / Getty Images
If you’re hosting a smaller gathering for New Year’s Eve, make the food simple by setting up a couple fondue stations. Cut appetizer type food like crudites and main course dishes like cooked shrimp, meatballs, and mushrooms. Set up a separate station for chocolate fondue, and include crispy treats, marshmallows, brownies, and other sweet treats.
Tropical Theme
It may be cold where you live, but hosting a tropical themed New Year’s Eve party may help fight off the winter blues. Add palm leaves to your decor, and serve beach-inspired cocktails and food. Hawaiian shirts are encouraged.
Bonfire Party
The Spruce / Margot Cavin
For a cozy New Year’s Eve party idea that’s still got some drama, plan a bonfire party. Light up the fire pit, break out the blankets and thermoses of hot drinks, and enjoy conversation and s’mores with your closest friends.
Read the original article on The Spruce.
