It comes around ever so quickly, but New Year’s Eve is still one of the most important celebrations of the year for a lot of people.
There are so many ways to see out the old year and welcome in the new. Whether you're a couple looking to spend a romantic night together or you're looking for some unique suggestions for fun with the family, you'll find some great New Year's Eve ideas and things to do below.
And, if you need a fantastic venue to throw your perfect party, why not take a look at our New Year cottages by clicking the button?
New Year cottages
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New Year’s Eve ideas for couples
A slap-up meal
If you’re going to last until midnight, you need to make sure that you’ve got enough energy to stay on your feet. Why not begin the evening in a sedate fashion with a relaxing meal in a fine dining environment?
Treat yourself to a sensational Cornish dish from Outlaw’s New Road in Cornwall, for example, or, up north, head to L'Enclume in Cumbria for a meal you'll never forget. Wherever you are in the country, track down those Michelin-starred and award-winning restaurants – after all, it’s not every day you can celebrate a new year!
The Miller's Shed
A cabin for two
Escape the hustle and bustle, light the fire and enjoy a cosy evening of food and drink; there’s something very festive about an intimate evening spent in a cabin. Whether you’re surrounded by trees or nestled on the coast with the sound of distant waves, seeing out the year together in a log cabin is sure to make memories that last forever.
If it’s a cabin you fancy this New Year’s Eve, then why not brave the cold and end the year in a hot tub? Or go off the grid, embrace the lack of phone signal and separate yourselves from everyday life. Whatever your preferences, you won’t regret your decision, in fact, it may just become an annual tradition!
Cabin Holidays
A quiet night
If heading out into the chilly streets with thousands of others isn’t your idea of fun, why not stay in and keep the celebrations low-key? Cosy in your holiday cottage, you can snuggle into the sofa in front of the fire, watching the action on TV. Throw in a few board games, a good book and a tasty winter warmer meal and you’ve got all the ingredients for a perfect night in.
If you’ve got young children, make sure they’re all tucked up in bed nice and early, stick some relaxing tunes on the speaker and get ready to see in the new year in an understated yet romantic fashion.
Romantic cottages
Ardle Lodge
At one with nature
For some, New Year's Eve isn’t about parties, fireworks and dancing; it’s about putting the past year behind and looking forward to the future. If you're looking for a New Year idea with a twist, why not spend this winter's night in nature? Small, peaceful crowds gather at stunning locations across the UK to witness the first sunrise of the new year.
One of the best places to watch the sunrise on the new year is a beach in Norfolk – on the sunrise coast, you can be the first to see the golden sun peek over as it rises on the first day of January.
Rural holiday cottages
Cheese and wine night
Who doesn’t love a delicious cheese board accompanied by a fine wine? Assemble different types of cheese and a bottle of your favourite wine, accompanied by a box of crackers, a few varieties of chutney and a couple of bunches of grapes and your New Year's Eve will be a feast.
New Year’s Eve ideas for families
A gathering of friends
When you’ve got children, sometimes you can feel a bit sidelined at New Year, with friends going out while you’re at home looking after the little ones. What better way to keep everyone happy than to bring together all of your friends with children in one big group cottage?
Treat the little ones to a late night (if they can last that long!) and don’t worry about cutting off the celebrations early, as you can pop out and put them to bed before carrying on the evening with the adults. Our large cottages offer plenty of space for socialising while making sure you have a private patch to retire to when bed is calling.
Movie night
This is one of the best ideas for New Year's Eve if you're hoping to spend a chilled one with your family. Fill the living room with duvets, blankets, pillows and bean bags and settle down for the evening. Choose a good selection of films to suit the whole group and, accompanied by some tasty snacks, start making your way through them.
For the first part of the evening, while the adults chat in the kitchen and enjoy a couple of drinks and nibbles, set some children’s films up for the little ones. In some of our cottages, you’ll find multiple televisions so you could even have kids’ films running all evening! Make sure you turn over to watch Big Ben chime at midnight, bringing in the New Year with your family.
Get the dog involved
Seeing as the family dog is there for you throughout the year, it only seems right to get them involved with your New Year’s Eve party! From festive New Year’s Eve walks to a midnight countdown with treats, there are so many ways for your dog to join the party.
If you’re hosting a movie night, why not grab a blanket and a treat for them? Or if you’re seeing out the year with an evening of baking, throw in some dog-friendly treats for your furry friend to enjoy. Fun, food and four-pawed friends, what better way to welcome the new year as a family?
Dog-friendly cottages
Quiz night
This is one of the best things to do for New Year's Eve for larger families. Planning a quiz can be great fun, and you might learn a few things you didn’t know before. Make sure there is a large group of you so that you can break off into teams, and plan a children’s round so that you can all get involved. To mix it up, make each round different. Here are a few ideas for themes:
- Pictures e.g. guess the celebrity
- Anagrams e.g. Christmas songs, celebrity names
- A play on words
- Potluck – completely random
- Categories – e.g. Music, sport, history, literature
- Guess the song and who sang it
- Guess the year of a major event
Glow in the dark party
Children will absolutely love this idea; staying up late when it’s really dark is a novelty for kids so make it extra special with lots of luminous décor. Purchase a selection of glow-in-the-dark props such as light-up balloons, glow sticks, flashing glasses and fibre optic lights, and you can even get light-up ice cubes for drinks!
Don’t stop there though; drape a load of LED fairy lights around the house so everyone can see where they are going. A little trick to make your balloons glow without having to buy special light-up ones: put a glow stick inside the balloon and then blow it up!
New Year's ideas for kids
New Year’s Eve ideas for groups
Fancy dress party
Nowadays, rarely is there a New Year’s Eve celebration without at least one group of fun-loving friends donning their dressing-up-box best and getting into character for some late-night partying! Whether you choose to stay in or go out, pick a theme, gather your garments and go all out for a fancy-dress evening to remember.
This is a fun way to get everyone in the family involved. Why not dress as children’s TV characters? The little ones will love it and it will be amusing for the big ones too!
A few fancy-dress theme ideas:
- Choose an era e.g. 1920s, 1970s
- Celebrities of the present day
- Film characters
- TV personalities
- Heroes and villains
- Choose a colour theme
Swinmoor House
Games night
Arrange an evening of hilarity with some fantastic games to see in the new year with laughter. A group holiday cottage with plenty of communal space is the perfect location, and our cottages with games rooms already offer hours of fun inside with pool tables, table tennis and more.
Pass the hat is a good game to play with a group – the aim is to get the festive hat around the circle, from head to head, without using hands. Play New Year’s charades, acting out events from the past year for others to guess. Taboo is a fun one too; stick celebrity names to each person’s forehead and they must ask questions to guess who they are.
Cottages with games rooms
A dinner party
A dinner party is a great way to entertain friends and family for those hours in the run up to the 12 o’clock chimes. Plan the menu carefully beforehand so you’ve got plenty of time to fit in three courses and even a few nibbles to begin with!
Make sure that you’re stocked up with everyone’s favourite beverage and plenty of breakfast options for New Year’s Day. That way, you can enjoy a luxurious lie-in followed by a delicious brunch!
A foreign affair
Enjoy the best of both worlds by spending New Year’s Eve in the UK, surrounded by family and friends, while throwing in some exotic elements to add a little pizzazz to proceedings!
Countries across the world incorporate their very own ‘lucky foods’ into the celebration. Make sure pork is on the menu, as it will help you ‘move forward’ in the new year and is popular in countries such as Germany and the USA. For dessert, enjoy a ‘galette des rois’ or ‘king cake’. Traditionally eaten in France around Christmas and New Year, this cake contains a little trinket to bring luck to the person who finds it in their slice. Don’t forget a bunch of grapes too, so that you can eat one on each chime of the midnight bells – a popular Spanish tradition!
A cocktail party
Sip, sip, hooray! Enjoying a sparkling evening of cocktails with a group of friends is always an exciting way to end the year and kickstart the next. Whether it’s a zesty cocktail to help start the new year with a twist, or a bubbling mocktail to add that festive sparkle to the evening, there’s something for everyone at a cocktail party.
Don’t forget the little touches that make the evening more special: plenty of ice, garnishes, stirrers and quirky bar extras such as shakers, strainers and cocktail umbrellas!
Cottages for groups
A few small ideas
Extra tips and ideas for a fun New Year's Eve:
- Get everyone to write their predictions for the next year on a piece of paper
- Get your guests to bring a small dish and enjoy a midnight feast to bring in the new year
- Decorate with lots of tea lights, curling ribbon and paper snowflakes to keep costs to a minimum
- Organise a big bowl of party poppers, noisemakers and confetti for midnight
- Make sure you’ve got some champagne ready for a midnight toast
- Create a special mocktail for kids to celebrate with
- If you've got really little ones, have a mock midnight at a suitable time so that they can celebrate too before heading to bed
A New Year’s Eve idea for everyone!
See in the new year in a cosy cottage
Up and down the country, villages, towns and cities come alive with fireworks, entertainment and weird and wacky traditions – why not see them for yourself?
Bideford in Devon, Newquay in Cornwall, Stonehaven and Edinburgh in Scotland (with its Hogmanay celebrations) and Allendale in Northumberland are particularly renowned for being some of the best New Year’s Eve destinations in the country! Check out our top UK New Year's Eve destinations to bring in the new year with a bang.
But, if all the hype is too much for you, don’t feel you have to follow the crowds. Book a romantic break with your partner, or get away for a week with your family and let New Year’s Eve pass by like a normal night. You won’t be tired in the morning and you can have a lovely time exploring a new place without ringing in your ears or nursing a hangover from the night before! A holiday is a great way to start the new year as you mean to go on.
New Year cottages