This post may come a bit late for planning today's New Year's Eve festivities, but I got the idea only yesterday afternoon, and I still found a few things that are pretty easy to add to our New Year's celebration. We have teenagers that usually go a few different directions on New Year's Eve (dances, parties, etc.), so I hadn't made much of a New Year's Eve plan other than to hang out with my hubby. Then, I found out kids would be home for at least part of the evening, and my sister and brother-in-law would be around as well, so I decided to come up a few activities.
This led me to wondering how New Year's Eve was celebrated around the world. I am aware there are different calendars and different starts to the year in Chinese, Jewish and several other cultures, but I was curious about how other countries on the Gregorian calendar brought in the New Year. After searching the internet, I found some pretty fun (and a few wacky) traditions. My favorite site for this information was http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/50-new-year-traditions-from-around-the-world.html, because it pretty much compiled all the information I found on numerous other sites.
From the New Year's traditions found on this site, my sister and I put together our own version of "New Year's Eve Around the World." We planned activities from different countries to do throughout the night as a way to count down to midnight.
We left the traditions of wearing polka dot clothes and colored underwear (Italy and some Central and South American countries) to bring, luck, prosperity, and love to the attendees discretion. We are following the Greek tradition of hanging an onion on our door, but the jury is still out on whether we will bop our kids on the heads with it to wake them up tomorrow morning. We considered the Danish tradition of smashing plates on the doorstep - it sounded like a lot of fun, but we live on a farm with dogs, cats and free ranging chickens, so we decided that was probably not the safest plan.
In Estonia, they believe eating 7, 9 or 12 times on New Year's brings luck for the upcoming year, because these are lucky numbers. The more you eat, the better the upcoming year will be. I think this is a fantastic tradition, although the only way I could possibly eat that many times is with very small portions. With that in mind, we decided to have a simple buffet set up for the duration of the party. Many cultures believe circular and ring-shaped foods bring good luck and prosperity for the upcoming year, because they resemble coins and/or they symbolize 'coming full circle.' We will be including everything from oranges and sliced carrots to German jelly filled donuts and kransekage, the traditional Danish and Norweigian marzipan ring cake.
Our tentative schedule is below, and I will add pictures as we get things done. If you try any of these New Year's traditions, please leave a comment on how it went. Also, feel free to share other fun New Year's traditions:
5:00 pm - Serve black-eyed pea stew with homemade bread. The stew originates in the Southern United States, and the making homemade bread and kneading love and good wishes into it is an Armenian tradition. We may even smack the bread on the wall a few times in honor of an old Irish New Year's tradition.
6:00 pm - Columbia has a tradition that if you carry an empty suitcase around with you, the upcoming year will be filled with travel. I plan to make small, paper suitcases that everyone can tie to their belt loop, wrist or whatever. That might be cheating a bit, but who wants to pull a real suitcase around all night?
7:00 pm - In the Netherlands, they make bonfires and burn their Christmas trees on New Year's Eve. Our Christmas tree is artifical, but my sister bought a small, live tree this year that has dried out enough she has offered to throw it into the flames. We have a big pile of scrap wood we've been meaning to torch for awhile now, so we should be able to get quite a large and toasty fire going.
Many countries burn effigies or scarecrows - sometimes of politicians. We will be making paper dolls (perhaps with certain politicians' faces) and we will burn those in our Christmas tree bonfire.
11:00 pm - We're on Central time, so this will be midnight on the East coast. In honor of New York Times Square, we'll be dropping our own ball from the upstairs balcony in our house. In honor of places in South Carolina and Georgia, we may also be dropping - wait for it ... a possum. Although we could probably find a live possum here in Texas, I would never bring one into my home, even if I could get it past my dogs. If we drop a possum, it will be a very fake one.
MIDNIGHT - We will attempt the Spanish tradition of eating twelve grapes, one for each stroke of midnight - I say 'attempt,' because I have one child that isn't very fond of fruit. We will definitely be doing the Danish tradition of jumping off of chairs (how did I not know about this one earlier?), we may sprinkle salt on our doorstep, like they do in Turkey, and we will definitely hold with the American tradition of kissing the person you want to continue kissing through the upcoming year.
Jul 17, 2012
Axis and Allies / World War II Party
My
son is an avid fan of the board game Axis and Allies, and is fascinated by
World War II ships, air craft carriers and planes. Fortunately, he told me he
wanted this theme for his birthday party several months in advance, because it gave me
time to come up with a few ideas. World War II is not generally looked at as party material, and is a theme that should obviously be taken on carefully and with sensitivity. Because my son loves the planes and air craft carriers, I tried to focus the activities on that. World War II party ideas, are often aimed at war veterans and older crowds, so I ordered the book “World War II for Kids,”
which had a few ideas that I adapted (it also made a great gift for my son),
and I came up with several ideas on my own. A few of the sites you can find
“World War II for Kids” are below:
Invitations:
The
invitation is a modified draft letter. I
started to make it as authentic as possible, but lightened it up and trimmed it
down after reading the last few paragraphs of an actual draft letter, which
summarizes how soon-to-be soldiers should take care of their personal affairs,
get a will, etc. in case they die in battle.
There was also the fact that using the actual seal of the U.S. would be
illegal. The final product is something
more colorful and fun than an actual draft letter, but still has some of the
World War II flavor. It can be easily
edited for your party needs.
Decorations:
·
Balloons
and/or crepe paper in red, white, and blue (many of the Axis and Allies had
these colors, not just the USA) or camouflage.
·
Flags
from the Axis and Allies countries - http://www.flagco.com/ is a pretty good site for historical
flags. It also has a variety of sizes,
including toothpick flags, which are fun for cakes/cupcakes.
·
World
War II posters – you can buy actual posters or get Public Domain pictures from
the Internet and print them. Be advised
that some of the propaganda posters are not very PC, so you will want to
consider your audience (Some propaganda posters have racial slurs and negative
racial/gender stereotypes). However, there
are plenty of posters that are patriotic, upbeat and even humorous. I was able
to find enough that were kid appropriate that I peppered our walls with them
for the party. Some sites where you can
order posters are:
Party
favors:
·
Axis
and Allies miniatures
·
World
War II plastic soldiers – (Hobby Lobby sometimes carries them in store for a
reasonable price, but does not always carry them online)
·
Dog
tags
·
World
War II posters sticker book by Dover
·
Parachute
men (variety of styles - usually
available at party stores and the toy section of stores like Walmart and
Target)
·
World
War II gliders (these were a huge hit with my son and his friends)
The
Cake:
Make
a basic white cake – any shape is fine.
After pouring the batter into the pan, put a few drops of red and blue
food coloring on the batter. Use a
butter knife to swirl the food coloring into the batter. Do not mix the food coloring in
completely. The less you mix it in, the
brighter the color will be, and the swirls will be more distinct. Also, mixing the two colors together will
turn the batter purple J.
Another
option is to use a chocolate cake, because it works well as the “dirt” under
the army figurines.
Put
one or more small cakes or cupcakes (upside down) on the top of the main cake
for the hills in your army landscape.
The
“dirt” is chocolate frosting with Oreo cookie crumbs sprinkled on top. Coconut dyed with green food coloring works well
for grass; however, if your birthday boy or girl hates coconut (like mine did),
you can use green sprinkles or green frosting instead.
Decorate
the top of the cake with toothpick flags (purchased or made by printing small
pictures of flags and cutting them out), plastic army men, tanks, etc.
Games/Activities:
Military Ranks
There
are many internet sites that have information about WWII military ranks, and
you can choose to keep the game relatively simple, or, depending on the age of
the party-goers and the branch(es) of the military you want to focus on, you
can make the game more challenging. Because my son wanted his party to be
themed around ‘Axis and Allies-War at Sea,” we chose the Navy. If you search
for “WWII military ranks” on the web, you will find options for other military
branches, as well as other countries beside the U.S.
At
the very beginning of the party, we gave the kids their dog tags, and explained
that they were enlisted as “ensigns.” The dog tags we bought had a place to
write the boys’ names and their rank. We
wrote their names in, but told them that we would fill in the rank at the end
of the party.
We
assigned each of the other games we played a certain number of ranks for
winning. For example, if you flew your
glider the farthest, you might go up a rank.
For more challenging games, like ‘Sink the Ship,’ we had the 1st
place winner go up three ranks, the 2nd place winner go up 2 ranks,
and the 3rd place winner go up 1 rank. We had certain activities where all the
children went up a rank, so that everyone got a chance to advance.
At
the end of the party, the kid(s) with the highest rank won a special prize, but
I found they were just as excited to have us write Vice Admiral or Admiral on
the rank on their dog tags. Even the
kids that only advanced part way up the ranks were excited to see what their
final officer rank was.
Sink the Ship
You
will need:
·
Flat
‘decorator’ marbles or poker chips – different colors for each team (red,
white, and blue) work well
·
Blocks
of wood (painted/decorated with WWII ship names is a fun extra)
·
A
tub or kiddie pool full of water
Fill
the tub/pool with water and float the wooden ships in it. Have the kids throw the flat marbles/poker
chips and try to get them to land on the ships.
This is harder than it looks, so make it age appropriate. I had a bunch of very competitive 9-10
year-olds who found hitting the small (abt 6”x 2”), moving targets
difficult. In hindsight, larger blocks
of wood might have been more appropriate.
That said, the kids still loved it, and they didn’t give up until they finally
‘hit’ the ships.
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