Ever since we've had kids we've decided to celebrate New Years early. Early is usually around 8 P.M. so somewhere in the world someone is bringing in the new year with us but usually it's not our neighbors. We light sparklers at 6:00 and then come in to play some games, eat some treats and then do our countdown at 10 seconds to 8. At which time we toot our horns, pop those little confetti things and shout at the top of our lungs, "Happy New Year!" Then it is time to clean up the streamers, finish getting the kids ready for bed and then finally put them to bed. We figure there is no sense in having the kids stay up late since they don't sleep in and then have them be grumpy all the next day because of lack of sleep. It works out really well since they watch fun movies during the day and at night we have our party with lots of fun treats that they have picked out.
This year, E, asked me if she could stay up till midnight. I told her no and that we celebrate early so that the next day we can all be happy people. Besides we were going to go sledding the next morning after we got up and had breakfast. That seemed to help. And on New Year's Day we did go sledding bright and early and we were the only ones at the hill so they all had plenty of time to sled on the sleds or on their stomachs and do the penguin slide. Even H got a few rides and enjoyed crawling on the icy snow. He lost his boots a few times but what do you expect from someone who still crawls everywhere.
Our favorite game this year was the Honey Bee Hop--squeals of giggles are heard as the girls try to jump over the bee and it gets them all tired from jumping and laughing. Here's to a great 2009!
1 comment:
Managing grumpiness and the desire to stay up late is tricky. We had sleepovers the night before to boot so when all of the kids made it to midnight we were definitely concerned the next day would be a grumpy one. It went well as didn't push any agendas (i.e. chores or major cleaning) and just relaxed as a family.
Happy 2009!
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