The Penguins Wish You a Happy New Year

As you know, if you are a long-time reader of this blog, we love our holidays around here. The penguins are always up for a good celebration and we have built traditions into all the holidays we could get away with. Most of our traditions have come naturally, without too much thought or consideration. But New Year's Eve and Day are not exactly rife with time honored practices that are also family (especially little kid) friendly. For a long time, if we didn't have family to spend the evening with, we didn't really do much to acknowledge the event. Just a nod to the New Year at midnight and then off to bed. In fact, our most memorable New Year's Eve was watching the ball drop in the ER the year one-year-old Abbie had croup. It's never fun to spend your night in the ER, but it's particularly icky when you are stuck there with a sick baby and a bunch of crazy drunks.

Anyway, as the kids have gotten older and have an inkling of what this day even means, we are slowly developing family traditions that are more fun than breathing treatments and tiny hospital tvs. I tried the hourly  opening of bags; I tried arts and crafts; I tried elaborate games; but all of  those were too much work for me and not enough fun for the kids. Then last year we stumbled upon a fairly good plan. A fun supper of "junk" food... cheese, crackers, bite-sized veggies, summer sausage, chips, left-over Christmas goodies, and an evening of games with, if necessary, a good movie thrown in. It was fun, easy, and repeatable. The perfect recipe for a tradition. 

So that is our plan for ringing in the New Year. What does your family do?

I didn't really have any pictures that fit this post, so here is a gratuitous one of our honorary penguin. Because she would totally wish you a Happy New Year if she knew what that meant. And she might even share a dog  treat with you, in honor of the occasion, because she is just that kind of dog.