A Make-Your-Own New Year’s Eve

Our family celebrations for New Year’s Eve have always been fairly simplistic. We eat something fun and just hang out as a family. Last year we celebrated with a party platter from Subway and a night of Wii playing. For as much fun as we’ve had the past few years, we’ve really wanted to develop some kind of special tradition we can enjoy year after year. If our plan for this turns out as we expect, I think we might have a winner.

We are going to be having a Make-Your-Own New Year’s Eve!

We’ll begin the night individual sized pizzas that we’ll all top as we prefer. I’ll be using my favorite pizza crust recipe and rolling them out into individual sizes for the 6 of us. Then I’ll prepare lots of different toppings and set out individual bowls. There will be homemade pizza sauce, a couple cheese options, pepperoni, bacon, sausage, sliced olives, onions, peppers and diced pineapple.

Following that, we’ll be watching The Muppets Take Manhattan while munching on make-your-own popcorn bowls. Basically, I’ll set up a popcorn mix-in bar that includes some candies, chocolate chips, raisins, nuts, pretzels, seasonings and Parmesan cheese. Personally, I know I’m going to have a tough time choosing between a sweet or savory snack.

As we countdown to midnight, we’ll wrap the night up with a make-your-own sundae bar. We’re going to get a couple different ice cream options and then all the usual sundae toppings. I’m thinking by that point in the night we won’t need very big sundaes, but it will still be a fun way to close out the year. If I can find some plastic champagne glasses, I might even serve up the ice cream in those.

We are all so excited for this celebration and we’re pretty sure we have a tradition in the making. I can’t think of a better way to begin 2011!

What do you have planned for New Year’s Eve?