New Years with Kids

Who would’ve thought New Year’s Eve could be so (in the words of one of the male guests) “epic” with kids? Especially when the ratio of kids outweighed the adults.

This year – my first spent in Whangarei in about 15 years - I decided to throw a family-friendly barbecue for my friends who didn’t have babysitters.

I started off saying the more the merrier but then realised with every adult or two usually comes multiple children which could quickly get out of hand so I called it quits at just a few families.

We also agreed that we weren’t fazed at seeing in the New Year so we’d have a faux countdown at around 10pm. Yes, I know, very sad – long gone are the teens of the 90s who spent the night repeatedly walking between Waitangi and Paihia and back seeing how many pashes they’d get along the way. (I’m not owning up to that – I’m merely talking generically!)

And who wants to start the New Year off tired and hungover anyway? Every year you can pretty much guarantee it will rain on Christmas Day but the sun will beat down on your pounding head on New Year’s Day. That’s rather torturous when you’ve got a bunch of hyper kids itching to go to the beach.

So back to my epic New Year’s. The idea was to put the kids downstairs in the “kids lounge” with a dvd leaving us adults to get on with drinks and nibbles upstairs. Instead, everyone spread themselves throughout the house – two boys parked themselves in front of Play Station in the kids lounge, two girls played school teachers in the bedroom, one played Ninja Turtles in another bedroom, others bounced on the tramp and the rest discovered the skateboard, bikes and scooters in the garage. Next, out came the go-cart which needed fixing. So down to the workshop went the men and soon they were sitting on the drive with spanners while the kids waited in eager anticipation.

Finally it was good to go and this proved so popular, the men took over and were soon putting on a real show for us up above on the deck. They got more and more courageous and started coming down from higher points up my steep, windy drive causing us no end of alarm.

Miraculously everyone came away unscathed from that one and it was time for the barbi. After this, someone decided to crank up the Sing Star. As I haven’t busted this out for years the kids thought it was great fun and it proved some entertainment until everyone got sick of one of the dads hogging the microphone so eventually we drifted back upstairs and left him to it.

By the time we checked the clock it was 10.30pm so we did our countdown at top volume. The neighbours must’ve been checking their own clocks and wondering if we’d gone slightly balmy. After that it was crazy disco time in the lounge, complete with strobe lights, thanks to one of the kids flashing a torch at the roof. Even the men couldn’t help but join in.

Eventually one of the non-dancing kids got her way and managed to convince her parents it was home time. By then it was 11.30pm so we all bid each other farewell and happy New Year and the families set off in different directions for the short walks home.

“That was epic!” called back one of the dads through the darkness.

It truly was – and I’m not even being sarcastic.