How Are You Spending Your New Year's Eve tonight?

My husband and I, along with our teenage children, are hosting a small New Year's Eve party in our new home. There will only be eight adults with teenagers and some younger children. I downloaded lots of dance music from the 70's, 80's and today. Anyone who knows me knows I LOVE to dance! That is a must-have at my parties.

I made tissue pom-poms as the simple decor, taking an idea from Martha Stewart Weddings. The pictures shown above don't do them justice, though. We still have our Christmas decorations up so I am only putting the pom-poms in the Family Room where the main party/dancing will be taking place. Of course, there will be candles glowing everywhere. I will have two lanterns on top of my columns at the entrance inside the foyer. I originally was going to have them outside the entrance, however, in my area, a coldfront is coming in and it is VERY windy. I am also using small Mason jars as my luminaries to line the walkway, but they will have the flicker lights in them as tealights would not stay lit in this wind. I will be weighing them down with mini-sandbags I already have that I usually use for my paper luminaries when I use them for weddings.

Every family is bringing a hot or cold Hors d'Oeuvre and a sweet or salty snack. We are providing the drinks - wine, punch and sparkling cider for the toast at midnight. Why not champagne? Because the majority of people do not like the taste of champagne, so why waste a good bottle for just a sip? To divert to weddings for a moment, I also tell my clients to save money and not serve champagne for the toast for the same reason. A sip is taken and then the rest just sits in the flute - wasted. Okay, back to my party. The party is scheduled for 9pm - 12:30am, but if anyone wants to stay later, they are welcome. The first half-hour will see guests arriving and setting up the food. The next hour will be for eating, mingling with nice, background music playing. For the second hour, the dancing PARTAY begins! We'll dance until 11:30pm when it will be time to tune into Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve with the Jonas Brothers, which the teenage girls will love, and watch the ball drop to welcome in 2009!

I want to wish everyone a safe, healthy and Happy New Year!