60 New Year's Eve Games To Zhoosh Up The Celebrations

Hide a certain amount of Hershey Kisses throughout the house or the designated party space before visitors arrive. As soon as your visitors come, tell them they have until midnight to collect as many kisses as possible. At midnight, give the person who has received the most kisses an exciting prize. A kiss, perhaps? With consent, of course.

This active game works perfectly for a party of eight or more people and if there are kids involved. The goal is to collect as many teeny plastic babies as possible, which the guests will gather by popping balloons! To prepare for the game, you will have to purchase mini plastic baby dolls (available on Amazon) or use printed cardstock babies and put them inside about 1/4 of the balloons. Let's say you have 40 balloons, meaning that around 10 of them should have "babies" inside. Then divide all the players into two groups. Players, taking turns one after another, should dash across the room, pick one balloon, and pop it by sitting on it. If there's a baby inside, they pick it up and run to the end of the queue, and the next player in the team takes over the baton. Once all the balloons are popped, the team with the most babies wins!

For this game, you will have to prepare questions for your guests to answer in front of everyone regarding the previous year. The aim is for the players to reflect on their past year and find their own answers. You might use the following questions as examples: “Name one moment you’d like to forget,” “Name one newsworthy event that has impacted you most,” or “Name one lesson you’ve learned this past year.” Lucky ones can share their sunny stories, while those star-crossed may share their not-so-pleasant experiences.

This game is meant to prompt your guests to think creatively rather than to be taken seriously. Ask the guests to write something visionary down on a scrap of paper to complete the following sentence: “In the coming year, I will...” At some point during the party (it doesn’t have to be straight after guests have finished their prepositions), read the results aloud for hearty laughter! The authors (only if they wish) can then disclose themselves.

In this game, players must find the letters to spell “Happy New Year” or “Auld Lang Syne” or any other New Year-themed preposition before time runs out. However, they must do so by looking for the letters in a big plastic bin or a bucket full of sand!

Set an alarm clock to ring in five minutes and then hide it within the specified area. Tell your guests to search for it before it rings. If your guests prefer more of a challenge or consist mainly of adults, you may hide the clock in a more difficult-to-find spot.

For this one, guests should lean back, and the host should place a cookie on each player's forehead. Once all the players are set, it's time to face the cookie. Players must transfer the cookie to their mouths only using their facial muscles. No hands are allowed! We can guarantee there will be a lot of laughter with this one.

Print out the free party hat templates on cardstock. Let the kids color and decorate them. Remember to include enjoyable extras like glitter and pompoms. You could even hold a party hat fashion show!

This one will literally be a blast for the little ones! Once each player has a balloon tied to their ankles, players go around and step on each other's balloons. The winner is the one who has the last balloon standing! You may want to fill those balloons with confetti for even more festive joy. But be ready to face the cleaning afterward!

Your guests will really have to rack their brains on this one. Ahead of the party, come up with many New Year-themed questions to prepare for the game. You are more than welcome to seek inspiration from our list featuring flirty "Would You Rather" questions!

This classic game for road trips is also perfect for playing at parties. To play this NYE version of “Mad Libs,” each guest takes turns filling in the blanks to finish an odd and hilarious story. Also, you might want to put your drink down when it’s time to read the narrative aloud. You’ve been warned! Besides that, you may easily change this game to incorporate adult humor or keep it clean for family-friendly entertainment!

This countdown show will give every partygoer something to look forward to. To go from the beginning of the party to the stroke of midnight, the game requires preparation beforehand, specifically brainstorming a set number of game ideas. However, the preparation work is well worth it, and if you borrow the ideas from the rest of this list, your job is practically done. You are welcome. Oh, right, almost forgot. The premise of the game? Every hour, you pop a new balloon, revealing an idea for a fun activity!

Similar to the balloon-popping countdown game above, these countdown bags function similarly, except that activity ideas are waiting to be opened and read inside the bags. Pick up a new bag and snap it open every hour to keep partygoers entertained.

Make a matching game out of your and your friends' actual memories to honor the highs and lows of the previous year. And let's face it, Instagram is mainly for the highs of it. Unless it's your stories on "close friends." This is a fun and very personal party game that will surely appeal to the Instagrammers of the party. To prepare for the game, print two copies of selected Instagram photos, cut them in the same size and shape to create DIY IG memory cards, mix them all up, and lay the cards on a surface with a blank side facing the players.

While tossing a mirror ball around could be quite fun, we recommend playing this one with a balloon or a beach ball. We don't want to be collecting shards of glass throughout the night, right? Tell everyone at the party to form a circle. The person who is first to hold the ball should turn to face a participant on either side of them. The game's object is to pass the ball without using your hands around the circle. Once the first person successfully hands it off to their partner from either left or right, players continue passing the ball around the circle until it returns to the first player. If any player drops the ball, they are removed from the circle, and the game is resumed. The game continues until only two people remain, at which point they are both the winners!

To score points, see which team can answer the most questions related to the end of the year. For example, a team can be tasked to name a specific number of the year's top movies, the biggest celebrity scandals, or the celebrities who went on tours this year, etc. Just get creative!

This simple New Year's Eve party game is excellent for a big gathering of adults wishing to play something entertaining but still chill. No need to break a sweat with this one. To start the game, each player must add a few names to a bowl. It could be the names of famous people, fictional film or book characters, historical figures, or even guests at the party. Afterward, guests should split into teams and take turns trying to identify the names that teams drew from the bowl by providing hints to one another. You can keep the score of the points you receive for correct guesses or just have fun with it.

Loaded Questions is a funny New Year's Eve party game based on the well-known box game of the same name. Adult couples may find it especially intriguing! To start off, all the players must come up with some witty, loaded questions and put them in a bowl. If you decide to aim the questions at your special someone, the purpose of the question would be to learn what your partner really thinks and whether your opinions match. Or, if you want to make the game less couple-oriented, you can come up with more generic queries. However, if you decide to go with the first option, the inquiries could be: "What would you actually want your partner to wear for Halloween?", "Who made the first move?", "Who is a better kisser?" etc.

In this crafty game for kids, the youngsters will float their own tiny walnut boats to different islands to discover what the future holds for them. The best bit about this game is that kids can get involved in the game's preparation. Under supervision, the parents can let them decorate their boats with glitter, candles, or other knickknacks so that they can identify whose boat is whose. Then, each youngster can follow their boat around the islands, titled "fame," "riches," "love," or "success." The kid's New Year's prediction depends on which island the boat touches before the time runs out. If the game's premise sounds interesting, check out the full tutorial by Sara Mullett!