Little Farmstead: New Year's Decorating & A Fun Tradition!

Sunday, December 28, 2014

New Year's Decorating & A Fun Tradition!

A few years ago, we were hosting a small family gathering for New Year's Eve. I was trying to come up with a fun idea for our three young boys and their cousins.

I read somewhere about having bags to open with little prizes, treats or something to do each hour as you counted down to midnight. So, our sons and I decorated paper lunch sacks by drawing clocks with each hour on front of the bags. The boys colored them and attached curly ribbon.

We set out all the bags on the counter and each hour, all the cousins would come find that hour's bag to see what the surprise was inside. It was a fun way to keep the energy of the evening going! Inside the bags were things like edible treats, gold dollar coins and confetti poppers.

This year, I decided to make something that would replace the paper bags, and would double as a decoration and packaging for the surprises. I thought of making clock faces out of Christmas cookie tins. I would need six total to count down from 7 pm to 12 am.

I could only find two tins left at the thrift store - they
were on after-Christmas clearance for 50 cents each.

For the remaining "clocks" I used round paper craft boxes from Michael's.

I painted some of them white and some of them black, using paint I had on-hand.

I used Sharpie paint pens to draw the hour numbers and clock hands.

So far, the midnight clock is the only one I have filled. It has confetti poppers, party hats, noise blowers and midnight kisses (Hershey's kisses).

The dining room set up for New Year's...

I used a simple centerpiece on the table but may add some flowers or greenery...

This beautiful candle was a birthday gift from my Dad. It's the Fir and Firewood scent by Capri Blue (Anthropologie). It smells so good - wintery, but not too Christmasy!