Still haven’t made plans for New Year’s Eve? No worries. We've got your party right here. All you need is a heady cocktail, some simple snacks, and someone (or more!) to kiss at midnight. You’ve still got time, so let’s get cracking!
NEW YEAR COUNTDOWN CLOCK
OK, here’s how much time you have to get this party organized:
INVITATIONS
Start texting or calling your special friends – the ones that make you smile – to join you on New Year’s Eve. Time and location up to you.
COCKTAILS
The traditional Champagne cocktail is our recommendation for the perfect libation to welcome the New Year. It was invented by renowned mixologist Jerry Thomas in his 1862 cocktail bible, “Bon Vivant’s Companion”:
Lump of Sugar
1 or 2 Dashes Angostura Bitters
1 Piece orange Peel
Twist of Lemon Peel
Fill with Champagne. Stir gently.
Use Champagne glass.
Hint: prep the garnishes well ahead, but don’t open the bubbly and pour until about 10 minutes before midnight.
SNACKS
You can do chips and salsa, popcorn, sandwiches, warmed mixed nuts, OR…
CARAMEL COVERED CHEETOS PUFFS (or Crunchy Style)
These sound weird, right? But seriously they’re the best sweet-salty snack combo ever invented.
Ingredients
1 bag Cheetos Puffs 8.5 ounce bag
½ cup light corn syrup
½ cup brown sugar
4 tablespoons butter
Preheat oven to 250 degrees.
1. Pour Cheetos into a large mixing bowl.
2. Heat corn syrup, brown sugar, and butter over medium heat. Bring to a boil stirring frequently and allow to boil for one minute.
3. Pour the caramel mixture over the Cheetos and stir until most pieces are well coated. Spread Cheetos evenly out on a lined baking sheet and place in oven for 15 minutes. Stir and continue to bake for an additional 15 minutes and stir, repeating this process 2 more times for a total of 60 minutes in the oven.
When done, the caramel will be hard and Cheetos will be crunchy and not at all chewy.
4. Remove from oven, cool and break into pieces if needed.
-- From Heatherlikesfood.com
TOASTS
Toasting in the New Year is mandatory. Choose from these bon mots:
-- May the hinges of friendship never rust, nor the wings of love lose a feather. (Unknown)
-- Here's health to those I love and wealth to those who love me. (Unknown)
-- Here's champagne to our real friends, and real pain to our sham friends. (Unknown)
-- Merry met and merry part, I drink to thee with all my heart. (Unknown)
-- Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much. (Oscar Wilde)
-- Here's to alcohol: the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems. (Homer Simpson)
-- Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we diet. (Unknown)
WISHFETTI
Just a reminder that you still have time to submit your dreams, hopes, and wishes for 2023 online. They’ll be printed on pieces of paper and released over Times Square at midnight! It’s all free!
To submit confetti wishes online, go to the Times Square New Year's Eve Virtual Wishing Wall site, at event cosponsor Planet Fitness's website, or on Twitter and Instagram using the hashtag #ConfettiWish.
THE BALL DROP
We've been watching the event on TV since Guy Lombardo first began the telecasts in 1956, followed by Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve took over in 1972. Now every network has their own NYE bash.
Or tune in to the official New Year’s Eve live TV presentation or the Webcast put on by Times Square NYC.
TRADITIONS
Try these out to guarantee good luck in the new year:
In Spain, people eat 12 grapes – one at each stroke of the clock at midnight on New Year’s Eve.
Danes greet the New Year by throwing old plates and glasses against the doors of family and friends to banish bad spirits. (Please alert them first, if you plan to go through with this!)
To drive off evil spirits for a fresh New Year’s start, it is tradition in Panama to burn effigies (muñecos) of well-known people. Hmmm, so many to choose from this year…
In Brazil and other South American countries, it’s considered lucky to wear special underwear on New Year’s Eve. The most popular color is red for love!
In Germany, kissing someone at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s is thought to prevent a year of loneliness. This is our favorite!
GAME
We dare you to try playing the old parlor game,“The King of Hunky-Bunky.”
Select two people, place them at opposite sides of the room, the farther apart the better. Give each a lighted candle and tell them they must not laugh or even smile. They are to advance very slowly, looking at each other directly in the eye.
When they meet in the center of the room, with hands uplifted in great sorrow, one says: “The King of Hunky-Bunky is defunct and dead.” The other responds, “Alas, alas, how dies he?” The first, with increased sorrow says: “Just so – just so – just so!" Then comes the response: “How sad – how sad – how sad!” The couple rarely get beyond this point before they fall into gales of laughter.
-- From “Novel Entertainments for Every Day of the Year,” 1908.
AULD LANG SYNE
Even though most people just mumble along and have no idea what they’re singing, here are the actual lyrics:
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne?
Chorus: For auld lang syne, my jo, for auld lang syne, we’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne.
The song written by Scottish poet Robert Burns in 1788 is about two friends catching up over a drink or two, their friendship having been long and occasionally distant. "Auld lang syne" is old Scottish for "old long since," or "the good old days."
There are four more verses, but nobody ever gets that far.
Video by Envato Elements