New Years Eve Party

Growing up in Romania we always celebrated New Year's Eve with an all night party. I remember all the delicious food mom would cook the entire day so that we would have plenty to enjoy as we waited to greet the New Year . We were dressed in our best party clothes and were allowed to toast with fancy crystal glasses. But the best part for me as a child was being allowed to stay up as long as I would like. It only happened one night a year and that was New Year's Eve.

We are keeping some of the same traditions with our little family and Jasmine and Andrew seem to love the same thing I did when I was their age...staying up late. Maybe because their bed time is always 8 o'clock.

For our New Year's Eve party we invited almost 40 people and more than half were children since most of our friends have big families. It took a little prep work to fit so many people but by switching the furniture in the living room and taking some pieces of furniture out in the garage we were able to manage. It all worked out great and we had plenty of seating for everyone. There were board games, finger food, sarmale, chatting, dancing and lot's of fun games for the little ones. The XBox Kinect was a huge hit and everyone from young to old had at least one turn. A couple of families were not able to stay until midnight but there were plenty of us who did. We got out the paper trumpets and crowns and close to midnight we all counted down the minutes until we entered the year 2011. Screams of joy, hugs, kisses and best wishes followed soon after. It was such a great party and I look forward to the next one.