Unless you’ve planned an elaborate family vacation for the holidays, you may find yourself at home wondering what to do with the kids on New Year’s Eve. While it may be tempting to take the kids out, you may find that their capacities for late night partying aren’t very well developed. The best way to avoid carrying sleeping children in your arms all night, or to avoid grumpy temper tantrums, is to simply plan a fun family-friendly New Year’s Eve celebration in your own home. So what can you do to keep the kids happy and involved?

9. Cook a Huge Dinner Together

Start by bringing the family into the kitchen so that you can work together to cook a traditional New Year’s Eve dinner. Different cultures celebrate by creating different foods and you may want to choose a few that represent your own heritage. It doesn’t really matter what you choose, though, as long as the family sits down to eat and celebrate the upcoming New Year together.

8. Invite Friends and Family to Join You

Just because you’re celebrating the New Year at home with the kids doesn’t mean you have to celebrate alone. Invite your family and friends, especially those with kids of their own, to come over and celebrate with you. Make sure all the kids wear their PJ’s so they’re ready for easy transport back to the car and/or bed as soon as the festivities are over. It’ll be the coolest semi-sleepover they’ve ever attended.

7. Get Lots of Loud Party Supplies

You might not usually encourage your kids to make a ton of noise but New Year’s Eve is a once-a-year occurrence so you can definitely make an exception. Head to your local party supply store and let the kids pick out their favorite party hats, noise makers, and even confetti.

6. Create a Fun Balloon Game

Get some silver and gold balloons, blow them up (not with helium) and use them to play a friendly game of family volley-ball, making sure the balloons aren’t allowed to touch the floor during game play. At midnight, you can pop the balloons to make extra noise.

5. Let the Kids Decorate

Don’t decorate for your family New Year’s party in advance. Let the kids decorate the house as part of the party. Their unique take on how decorations should be hung should be entertaining while engaging at the same time. Put all of your decorations in the middle of the table, provide some scotch tape (and long arms if need be), and let the kids go wild.

4. Have an Early Countdown

Are some of the kids attending your holiday party just a bit too young to make it to midnight? If so, choose an earlier hour (like 9 or 9:30pm) and “pretend” it’s midnight. You can have all of the traditional countdowns, make lots of noise, have a special New Year’s treat, and then send the littlest ones to bed for the evening. The adults and older kids can do it all again for real at midnight.

3. Encourage Napping

Have a few kids who will try their hardest to make it to midnight but may get a bit grumpy along the way? Keep them busy in the morning with trips to the grocery and party supply stores and then encourage them to take a nap in the early afternoon so that they’ll make it to the ball drop at midnight.

2. Have a New Year’s Treasure Hunt

Set up a fun New Year’s Eve treasure hunt before the night of your party. Hide some treasures, treats, or toys and create either treasure maps or clues to help the kids find their special surprises. The surprises might be their midnight snacks or their extra special noisemakers or New Year’s gifts.

1. Ditch the Alcohol

Do you really need to ring in the New Year with a glass of champagne? Give the kids an extra special treat for when the ball drops. They may feel grown up with a glass of ginger ale but wouldn’t an ice cream sundae or slice of homemade New Year’s cake be more fun? Have everything prepared and dished out but don’t let anyone take the first bite until the ball drops, marking the start of a new, yummy year.

Think out of the box when planning your family friendly New Year’s Eve celebration – and remember – your kids will only want to spend so many holidays with you. Enjoy them while you still can!