New Years Party and Game Ideas

Tired of the same old games at your parties? Trying to come up with some fun ideas for your New Years Eve party? Here are some games to get your New Years party started.

Charades: break up into teams of about 4 people. One person acts out the charade while the rest of the group tries to guess. Prior to the party, make up movie scenes, current events, political figures, etc. from the past year or from history.

Board games: any number of board games can be played such as trivial pursuit. You can vary the teams by playing guys versus girls, couples versus other couples, etc.

Karaoke: rent a karaoke machine for the evening and have a blast as you and your friends and family sing along to the songs.

Treasure hunt: Prior to the party hide a number of items throughout the room or house (depending on how many rooms you want guests to be able to access). Break guests up into teams and provide them with a list of items they should be looking for. The group that finds all the items first wins a prize. You can vary the kinds of “treasure” guests will hunt for depending on the crowd (i.e. new years theme items, memorabilia, etc.)

Baby pictures guess who: Everyone brings a baby picture of themselves and they are displayed on a board. At a designated time, ask all the guests to write down whose baby picture belongs to the adult.

Pin the beard on father time or pin the diaper pin onto baby time: Download, draw or buy a decoration with Father Time or Baby Time and hang it up on the back of the door. Have little beards or diaper pins for your guests to use. Each guest gets blindfolded and then spun around until they are dizzy and then let loose to try to pin the diaper pin (or tail if you go with the good old pin the tail on the donkey game).

Piñata: fill a pinata that you buy or make from paper mache with goodies such as small candies and treats. Blindfold guests and make them dizzy if you want. Let each guest take a turn with a plastic bat at the piñata until all the treats fall to the floor.

Predictions: Everyone makes predictions for the upcoming year about their friends, family and the world, ranging from the silly to the serious. Share the predictions and save them in a “time capsule” (jar, box, etc.) to be read the following New Years party.

Word scramble: Prior to the party, make or download a word scramble using words related to new years or events from the past year. The first one to unscramble the words wins a prize.

Word search: Similar to the word scramble, but in a word search form.

Exchange gifts: Everyone exchanges tokens or gifts meaningful to them from the previous year (e.g., small items that depict a special event such as a wedding photo from the newlyweds, business cards for the person who opened their own business or got a new job, etc.)

Resolutions: Have everyone choose a resolution and bring something to symbolize it- put it in a box or capsule and put away until the next year to see how many people kept their solutions. Or for another spin, have everyone write new years resolutions. Collect them and mix them up in a bag, bowl or hat. Each guest picks one out of the hat and tries to guess who wrote it.

Resolution prediction: Everyone writes resolutions for the person to their left. These can range from the hilarious to the serious. Read them aloud and see how well your friends know each other.

Trivia: Prior to the party come up with trivia questions from events either world wide or within your own circle of friends and family and have teams guess the answers.

Simon says: One person plays Simon and tells the rest of the guests what to do. This could be kept clean or even get a little racy or silly for some good laughs.

Dessert race: Who can eat a dessert or other item the fastest without using their hands. For another spin on this, who can eat the most of…(fill in the blank) in a specified time period.

Act out movie scenes from the last year and teams guess which scene and movie.

Name that tune: Gather your CD collection up and play the first few lines of songs from the past year or over time. Guests guess which song, singer/group and/or era it came from.

Pass the orange: Pass an orange to your neighbor not using your hands. This is sure to bring a ton of laughs and you might be surprised at the creativity of your friends!

Two truths, one lie: This game works well for those who may not know each other well get to know each other better. Each person comes up with three sentences, two being truthful and one a lie. For example: I have climbed a mountain. I can speak two languages. I am allergic to peanuts. Two are truths and one is not. Others have to ask yes or no questions and guess which one is the lie.

Guess what is in the bag: Prior to the party place a variety of random items into a bag or box and people have to guess what they grab when they reach into the bag. They can’t look at the item, only feel it. For a variation on this, have gross or weird feeling items in the bag.

Singing contest with holiday songs: one person is judge and the rest of the guests have to sing holiday songs, trying to out-best the last person.