Have a Family New Year's Eve Blast!

Believe it or not, you CAN enjoy a New Year's Eve bash with kids - even
if you CAN'T get a sitter!

Infants and toddlers make it simple. Tuck them in, turn on the baby
monitor, and you're free to party - as long as you limit alcohol
consumption and keep the noise down.

Preschoolers and kids in the early elementary grades love getting into
the New Year's spirit.

To build excitement, announce a day or two ahead of time that you're
going to have a night-time New Year's party with pajamas on.

Then, when you go grocery shopping, you can let your child pick out a
party snack. A trip to a party store for some inexpensive noisemakers
will add to the excitement.

Or, create home-made noisemakers and decorations together. Visit
www.familycrafts.about.com/od/newyears or www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/newyear/ for ideas.

On the afternoon or early evening of December 31, sit down together
with some oversized construction paper, glue sticks, markers, crayons
and scissors and make party hats.

Now, here's the sweet part: Young children don't seem to mind at all if
midnight comes at 9 PM - or even earlier!

All you need to do is put on your party hats, pick your time, count down
from 10 and yell Happy New Year! with lots of noise and hugs and
kisses. Then enjoy your party snack.

Have older kids in the house?

You have even more fun choices as kids mature. You can:

• Print out the words to Auld Lang Syne (times long past) from the
  Internet and learn to sing it as a family. You can get the words and hear
  the tune at http://wilstar.com/xmas/auldlangsyne.htm
• Put into a box all the ticket stubs, souvenirs and photos you've saved
  from the year that's ending. Take turns pulling items out of the box and
  sharing fond memories.
• With adult supervision, let kids make home-made party snacks.
• Rent funny movies or old sitcoms to watch together. Maybe Abott
  and Costello or The Honeymooners will tickle your family's funny
  bone.
• Invite everyone to write down on a strip of toilet tissue events from
  the year that they want to put behind them. Then ceremoniously (or
  unceremoniously!) flush away.
• Play an old-fashioned game of charades. You might want to print
  out the special charades sign language from www.answers.com/topic/charades-2
• Invite family members to write down hopes and intentions for the
  coming year on slips of paper. Each person can seal their paper in an
  envelope, to be opened the following New Year's Eve if desired.

After your celebration, consider saving your noisemakers and
decorations to use again. Kids enjoy rediscovering their old favorites
from year to year.

And maybe you'll rediscover the kid in you.

Happy New Year!

Norma Schmidt, LLC

Norma Schmidt helps busy parents create peaceful, connected, spiritually well-fed families. To download Norma's FREE report, 55 Free and Low-Cost Ways to Have the Best Holiday Season Ever, click here.

Who Invented Christmas Lights?

Soon after Thomas Edison developed the light bulb that could be used for commercial use, the idea of Christmas tree lights was one of the first applications. Before the discovery of electricity candles were used as Christmas lights. The dangers of this were of major concern at the times.

As time evolved the candles had glass covers, or metal lanterns with small wicks and were hung on the trees like ornaments on Christmas trees. Think about doing that in this day and age: a recipe for a burning house.

Even with the dangers it took many years for holiday tree lights to become commercially available. It's said that the idea of these lights came from Edison's assistant, Edward Johnson: he had the bulbs made specially for his house and he displayed them his Christmas tree lights at his home on New York City.

From these humble beginnings the Christmas tree lights went through many changes before General Electric introduced them commercially. The early days of lights on Christmas trees was night lights strung together to make long stings of lights. You may have seen these in some old pictures. Those large bulbs that would shatter into a million pieces when they hit the floor.

Christmas mini lights were introduced in the mid to late 1970's. There have been many changes to the original Christmas lights but for the most part they are the same. Sales have climbed as application for these lights have changed to not just decorating the tree but also used as outdoor Christmas lights. Icicle lights are the most popular and are seen on most homes that use outdoor lighting at Christmas time. Outdoor decorative lighting has become one of the most popular types and can become somewhat of a competition among neighbors. Many people will use animated Christmas lights that can create a spectacular scene and some are even animated.

Many of the lights used now are led lights. They are long lasting and if one light goes out the whole string will still work, not like the old days, if one light was out you had to go through one by one to figure out the bad bulb. And with some holiday light strings of 100 or more, it was not a fun task. So make sure before you purchase your next set of Christmas lights that it says on the box that you don't have to replace a bad bulb to make the whole string of lights work.

Come and see some Beautiful Outdoor Christmas Decorations

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