How to Host a New Year’s Eve Party

Ring in the new year in the best way possible: Throw your own New Year’s Eve party at home! This guide for How to Host a New Year’s Eve Party offers tips and tricks to hosting and toasting at midnight with all your favorite people. 

How to Host a New Year’s Eve Party

We love hosting just about any holiday at our home, and New Year’s Eve parties are always so much fun. Who can turn down a chance to wear sequins and drink champagne and stay up late?! Well, actually, I can, now that I have kids! But pre-kids, NYE parties were so much fun to throw. 

New Year’s Eve is always a fun time though. You get to wind down the holiday season with a bang, hang out with friends and family one more time and welcome a new year once more. 

A good NYE party will help everyone mark this moment in time — isn’t it fun to look back at past New Year’s Eves and think about how you spent them and with whom? 

But if you’ve never hosted one before or just want to make sure all the i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed, this guide to how to host a New Year’s Eve bash is here to help! We’ll go over everything you need to throw a successful countdown night.

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Please note that this guide for how to host this party is not for a commercially-hosted New Year’s Eve event. So this will not be a guide for a bash that includes a dance floor, live music, full cash bars, etc. This is a guide for hosting this gathering inside your home in a way that is manageable, but still a magical experience.

More party ideas: How to Host Christmas Dinner | How to Host a Cookie Swap | How to Host Thanksgiving | How to Host a Cookie Decorating Party | How to Host a Gingerbread House Party

1. Choose day & time.

The day is easy: New Year’s Eve happens on Dec. 31 every year! You can’t really celebrate it any other time…  

The time is easy too — the ball drops at midnight, so this is going to be a late party if you want to stay up.

If you work backwards, you know that people will probably stay until 1 a.m. or so. A good party is usually 3-5 hours, so that would put your party starting between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. You can keep it casual, too, and let folks arrive whenever they’d like!  

Another option, especially if kids will be around, is having the party earlier in the evening, say from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Some TV stations offer an earlier ball drop you can plan around. And Netflix even has an on-demand ball drop! That way you can pretend to ring in the new year without missing bedtime. Win! 

Most NYE parties go heavy on the appetizers and desserts, but sometimes folks will turn theirs into a dinner party. That’s something to consider as you pick your time. 

New Year’s Day parties

If staying You can also do a New Year’s Day party, which is very common where I live. These usually occur mid-day, after folks have slept off their hangovers but before dinner — most people will have to work the following day! 

My bacon collard greens and black eyed pea dip are always a must at our NYD shindig (for good luck in the new year, of course!), and we always make it a gumbo party. 

If we do more of a brunch thing, we’ll always have Bloody Marys because Jan. 1 is also National Bloody Mary Day!   

2. Send invites.

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You can invite your crew however you like to your event. If you want to send an invite, great. If you’d rather invite via text or a simple email, have at it! The key here is making it easy on yourself. 

If you’re looking for something to make your NYE feel a little more special, here are a few ideas of how to step up your invite game.

• Design a New Year’s Eve party invite in a free program like Canva and send it via email.
• Design a virtual invitation in a program like evite or Paperless Post. I love this classic gold foil confetti invite.
• Print out an invitation from a company like Zazzle or Amazon and send them in mid-December. I really like this gold foil fizz pop clink invitation, these gold star confetti invites and these more basic glitter and champagne invitations that you write in the details for.
• Purchase a digital invite to message to your family members. This animated firework-themed one is super cute. I also love this festive lights invite. 

3. Make your menu.

New Year’s Eve parties are usually appetizer-heavy with a bit of dessert and lots of champagne, so that’s where I usually start. 

Once you know who is coming, ask about food preferences and dietary restrictions. After all, since you are hosting this shindig at home, you can make it an inclusive event for all.

You can incorporate dishes for any special diets so they don’t blindside you the day before.

New Year’s Eve food ideas

You may already have a set menu of recipes that are NYE traditions! 

If so, great — start there. If you don’t, keep on readin’! 

When I’ve done New Year’s Eve gatherings, I typically do something like this, though it varies a lot based on the number of people, who the people are and whatever we’re feeling that year: 

• We start with a smorgasbord of snacks, finger foods and appetizers like a cheese board and bacon wrapped dates, if you want to go fancy, or pepperoni pizza rolls and a cheese ball if your event is more casual.
• If you want to offer a late dinner, serve something cozy from the slow cooker that you can start early and not have to tend to things in the kitchen all night. We like baked potato soup with a toppings bar or something upscale, like slow cooker pork tenderloin. 
• Dessert is cookies — always. But you can also do something a little more glam like mini rum cakes or chocolate raspberry cupcakes if you’d rather.
• And you can NOT forget the drinks! This holiday is all about popping champagne, but there are tons of fun NYE drinks and craft cocktails you can mix at home. Beer and wine are good to have too. And sparkling lemonade, sparkling cider or a bubbly mocktail are a must for kids, non-drinkers and the VIPs — the designated drivers! 

Don’t miss these amazing holiday appetizers to make for the last day of the year! 

How much food to have for guests?

Obviously, you need to take into account the number of guests that you’re hosting to ensure there is enough food. 

One thing you can do is ask every guest to bring a food or drink item, so you can ensure you’re going to have enough food. This is great because you can focus on hosting, while everyone else helps to pad out the menu. You can even ask everyone to bring a bottle of bubbly to share — this will help save on costs too! 

4. Make a cooking timeline.

Every event I host, I write a timeline for the cooking so I know when I need to start cooking and can ensure that my dishes are ready at the time I want to serve them. Make the list, check it twice. 

I’ve written a detailed post on how to create a cooking timeline, but here is the general idea:

1. First and foremost, print out any recipes. Open up the cookbook(s) you are using, too.
2. Take out a pen and a sheet of paper. Alternatively, you could do this digitally.
3. Write down how long every recipe takes to cook, INCLUDING times for brining, chilling, etc.
4. Make notes of anything that needs to be made the day of vs. dishes (or parts of dishes) that can be made in advance. 
5. Decide on your food serving time (which should be about 45 minutes to an hour after guests arrive) and work backwards to know when everything needs to start cooking.
6. Build in wiggle room. I like to leave 30-45 minutes of this for myself before serving, so I start a little earlier just in case something takes longer.

Once you know your start time, write out a detailed list of what goes into the oven (or on the stovetop/slow cooker/etc.) and when so you can stay on top of it throughout the day before your New Year’s Eve celebration.

Keep this list on your refrigerator or somewhere in your kitchen that is very obvious so you can check it as you prepare.

5. Design the table.

First, plan the seating. Do you need to add a card table to the mix? Do you need to rent chairs? If you plan to use them, are the tablecloths/placemats ironed? 

Next, plan the food and drink stations. Where will the food be served? Where will you keep the drinks, like wine and beer? Where will appetizers be enjoyed? Where will you chill the champagne bottles — in the fridge or in a cooler? 

Think about all the spaces where guests will interact with the food. Make a list of what you’ll serve your stuff on and what you might need to acquire. 

I like to get out my dishes and label them with a sticky note to say what is going in them so I don’t forget or have the panicky moment when something comes out of the oven. (Yes, those happen.)

Heck, you can label and put them back in the cabinets until the day of.

Here are some of my favorite dishes to use while entertaining:

• Long Porcelain Serving Platter
• Rectangular Platter in White
• White Medium-Sized Serving Bowl
• Large Bowl in any color of your choosing
• Pottery serving bowls
• Champagne flutes for NYE toasts

That said, feel free to use whatever you have on hand and get creative! Your dishes don’t have to all be the same shape or pattern. Mix and match patterns to add some color and fun.

Also, remind your guests bring their own serving platters for their dishes — and remember to tell them to bring tongs and servingware, too! This comes in handy if you don’t have a ton of serving items at your house.

You can learn about My Favorite Easy Entertaining Tools and Products, too!

6. Grocery shop.

You can do this up to a week in advance. You can also place a grocery order for pickup or delivery, too, if that makes life easier. (I wouldn’t blame you a bit — the supermarket can be c-r-a-z-y this time of year.) 

Get everything you could possibly need when you’re at the store, too. The stores might close early on New Year’s Eve! (But it may help to jot down when the holiday hours are — just in case.) 

“Everything you could possibly need” means all your party supplies, so be sure to grab paper plates, cups and cutlery if you don’t want to use your actual plates, cups and silverware at the event. Which, let’s be real, makes cleanup a lot easier. Also, if you’re hosting more than 4/6/8/10 guests, do you really have enough plates for everyone? Probably not. (Also also what if the dishwasher goes out?) 

We are big fans of these compostable dinner plates, clear cups and biodegradable cutlery* (affiliate links) for parties, but you can use plastic or melamine reusable plates, cups and cutlery, too.

How much champagne to buy 

When planning how much champagne to buy for New Year’s Eve, consider the number of guests and how the champagne will be served. A standard 750ml bottle of champagne serves about 5-6 small glasses. 

• If you’re offering a midnight champagne toast (and not serving champagne until then), plan for one glass per guest, or approximately one bottle for every 5-6 guests. 
• If champagne will be served throughout the night as the main drink, you’ll need about ½ to 1 bottle per person. 
• For larger gatherings, you can also mix champagne into cocktails to stretch the servings further.

7. Make things in advance.

This step obviously depends on your menu and what you’re cooking. It also depends on what you can prep in advance, but not cook.

Whenever I host a holiday gathering like New Year’s Eve, I like to include as many dishes as possible that can be made in advance — partially or all the way — because it makes my life a lot easier and less stressful leading up to the event.

Obviously, this doesn’t work for every recipe, but getting out ahead of the cooking is a great way to be less stressed when entertaining.

Here are some examples of things you can prepare ahead of time:

• Chop fruits and veggies the day before. Obviously, some fruits and veggies will keep better than others, so use your discretion. For example, chopping an apple or a banana one day in advance is a bad idea. Strawberries are OK if you want them to have tons of juices, but otherwise, hold off. (You def don’t want to make chocolate dipped strawberries too early, though — they will get soggy!) 
• Purchase pre-chopped veggies at the store, like onions or even a bag of salad greens. Do what you need to do to make it easy on yourself! Frozen ones are okay too if they will work in your recipe. Frozen appetizers are also okay too — I love mini quiches and empanadas. 
• Make a drink (like a Citrus Cranberry Sangria) the day before. Let it hang out in the fridge and infuse! But if it has bubbles, wait to add those until right before the party starts. If you do it too early, you risk it going flat! 
• Bake your dessert one to two days before your event. Many desserts can be kept on the countertop. Just be sure to wrap it in plastic wrap once it’s cooled completely! 

Obviously, these are all dependent on your menu, but think it through and see what can be done. Really sit with your menu and decide it intentionally so that you can give yourself as much wiggle room as possible.

8. Decorate (but only if you want to).

Make your space as festive as you want — it’s a special night! Balloons, streamers and confetti are fun for a New Year’s Eve party, but you don’t have to! 

Also, fresh cut greenery from your yard (or your neighbor’s) in a vase can be pretty on the table.

Here are a few more ideas: 

• Cake toppers* (affiliate link) with the new year are cute decorations in your dessert.
• Set out new years noisemakers, confetti poppers, party hats or silly glasses for people to enjoy on the table or other surfaces. Little bags of confetti are great only if you dare (and have a great vacuum cleaner.) Be sure to have one of each for each guest.
• Candles add to the ambiance. I always like to burn unscented candles when we have guests since scents can bother some people, me included. Tea lights and fairy lights are sparkly and fun too. And don’t forget to turn on the Christmas tree if it’s still up! 
• Festive paper (or fabric) napkins that match your gathering can add a pop of color to the tablescape. Chances are, you’ve probably got ‘em at home already. 
• Make a bar! Turn a buffet table or another unused table in the dining room into a bar and offer up different mixers for everyone to make their own cocktails! Or set out the ingredients for one specific drink (like a Strawberry Champagne Cocktail). Print out the recipe and let everyone mix up their own.
• Add a pitcher or two of water or tea to the table. Add rosemary sprigs, orange slices and cranberries to both water and tea, so have fun with it! This will add flavor, height and color, as well as allow your guests to stay hydrated. We want those DDs to have a safe drive home! 

9. Take a deep breath, keep your cool and have fun!

The morning of your New Year’s Eve bash, take a deep breath. The reason you’re doing this is because it’ll be fun. Of course, there might be other things keeping you busy before your late-night event, so keep your cool and try to enjoy all the activities. 

Here’s how I like to fashion the start of any entertaining day:

• Drink a cup of coffee and collect my thoughts.
• Choose what I’m wearing, if I haven’t already. (Honestly, this is great to decide days or even weeks in advance.)
• Go over my cooking timeline. Make note of when I’m going to get ready.
• Empty my dishwasher. This way, I won’t have dishes in the sink when guests arrive.
• Get started with my first task.

Hosting and entertaining can be stressful. Things can (and probably will) go awry. But you can control how you respond to things.

Some ways to combat the stress when things aren’t going as planned:

• Deep breaths. My older daughter’s teacher taught her all kinds of breathing exercises, and I like to use these to this day.
• Enlist help. There is nothing wrong in asking for assistance!
• Serve appetizers early. (This list of The Best Holiday Appetizers has a lot of fabulous ideas for you!)
• Let guests mingle for a little longer than planned.

You can do this. Promise.

Don’t let entertaining keep you from interacting with your guests. Whenever we host, we’ve found everyone tends to gather in the kitchen as we finish whatever we are serving, and it’s a lot of fun to chat as you finish cooking.

When you’re hosting a New Year’s Eve party, this line of thinking applies, too. Also, your friends might be in the kitchen with you finishing up their dishes, too. And if your guests offer a hand, let them help.

Make this fun for everyone — and everyone includes YOU. Your family is celebrating with you because, well, they’re family! So spend time with them.