New Year's Eve

Well, since coming home from church, I have spent the last few hours taking down Christmas decorations. I am far from done as my one year old kept taking things out of the boxes that I had just put in them. I like to have most if not all of the decorations down by January 5th--the 1st preferably.

Anyway, I thought I would briefly write about what our family does for New Year's Eve. We have taken this from Dentist husband's family. I ask each child what food item they want me to prepare for dinner. It can be ANYTHING. With my husband's family, the food requests have been as simple as cottage cheese or as grandiose as Beef Wellington. This year, my kids kept it fairly simple. Toothsome #1: Lettuce wedges--iceberg lettuce with blue cheese dressing. Toothsome #2: Homemade noodles. Toothsome #3: Roasted hot dogs. Toothsome #4 is too little to request. I usually request slushy Limeade.

So our dinner is a strange assortment of foods but everyone gets their favorite item added to the pile. In the last few years, I have added "The Awards Ceremony." Besides this blog, I have written a detailed family letter for the last 12 years or so. I write it on average about every two weeks and it is e-mailed and in a few cases for people without e-mail, regular mailed. I started it when my parents were called as MTC presidents in the Dominican Republic and it has been a great documentation of our lives. Anyway, I review the past year's family letters and make awards for each child spotlighting this past year's accomplishments. For example, "Great Swimmer Award" to a child who has passed off many levels of swimming. Or, "Outstanding Pre-schooler" for the child who started pre-school. And often more specific like, "Great Header" to the child who scored his first header goal in soccer. The kids LOVE it and it is a fun way to look back on the year.

We also set out all of our games and play games until bedtime.

Around 9:00 pm, (I am mean and have yet let my kids stay up until midnight), we go outside and bang on pots and pans (something from my husband's family) before sending everyone to bed. My husband and I will often stay up and play Scrabble or watch a movie but we rarely stay up until midnight. With little kids, midnight is too close to their true waking up hours.