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I love my kids. I love celebrating with them but, I don't love how they react when their schedule gets thrown off. I work hard to ensure they are in bed by 8 no matter what the day holds. This i is vital to how I keep my sanity most days with a crew this size. New Years is the holiday where children typically struggle to stay awake all night to see midnight. An anti-climatic change of the clock and calendar really. Instead of staying up late we celebrate with a little party then tuck into bed on time. This year we will be celebrating a day early while my husband goes hang out with friends at the last concert of the year. This means the kids and I get to have some wild and crazy fun while he gets to come home and climb into bed 2 am to crash for the night. We even plan for a date night at home on the real New Years' Eve. The first thing we will be doing for our New Year's Eve party is spending the morning finishing up any clean-up we need to get done. I love starting the new year with a clean home so the time between Christmas and New Year's is all about cleaning. This is a great way to help burn off your child's energy. Blast some music and give everything a good scrub down. Making pizza is a new tradition for us. We used to order pizza out for the nights my husband will be out of the house and have some fun ourselves but pizza on the side of town is well lacking. A little fun masking our own is a great activity for the entire family. Baking pizza with kids is messy but fun. Skip buying the sauce and 100+ other things you can make yourself. Nothing makes a party like pulling out a box of craft supplies. Setting up a craft table will keep the kids busy. the bin of art supplies and craft time are my go-to when I need something fun for the kids or my crew grows larger when we have visitors. A go-to for keeping the kids warm is blanket forts and glow sticks. New years is rolling in along with the next wave of arctic air swooping down. This means I will be pulling everything out to build some blanket forts in front of furnace vents to help keep the kids warm and toasty while they play without having to kick the heat up a ton. Shhhh, don't tell them I have an ulterior motive for pulling out this activity on sub-zero days.