New Year with the family: traditions of celebration

New Year is a family holiday, hardly anyone will argue with this statement. After all, what could be better than gathering at the festive table with a friendly company of relatives and friends, wish each other happiness and good luck in the coming year, take stock of the outgoing year, enjoy the gifts and have fun with conversations and entertainment! Celebrating the New Year at home with your family can be a great opportunity to strengthen family ties.

Traditionally, delicious and delicious dishes are prepared for the New Year, which you cannot afford every day, since it is either expensive or it takes too long to cook. It can be meat baked according to a special recipe, a seafood cocktail, an unusual salad.

A variety of dishes are usually present on the New Year's table. It can be:

• meat and cheese cuts;
• fresh fruits;
• several types of hot dishes, for example, fried chicken with crispy potatoes and pork ribs in soy sauce, fish baked in the oven with lemon wedges;
• "Olivier", crab salad, Greek salad, liver cake, herring "under a fur coat";
• shortbread cookies in the shape of Christmas trees, stars, Christmas deer, you can bake your favorite cake or find a new recipe.

It is better to refuse purchased packaged juices, since they are full of sugar and preservatives with no benefit at all, and cook berry juice do it yourself, children will really like milkshakes, hot chocolate, adults can limit themselves champagne.

Each year, according to tradition, it bears the name of one of the animals of the Eastern Zodiacal Circle. It also corresponds to a certain color scheme, which should be adhered to when choosing outfits and New Year's decor for the home, in order to appease the “owner of the year”. Therefore, when planning what and how you will decorate your home, you can take this idea into service and choose accessories of the appropriate colors. If you think that just dressing up the tree will be enough, then you are deeply mistaken.

Buy toy Santa Claus and Snow Maiden, put them under the Christmas tree, and put beautifully wrapped gifts next to them.

Do not forget about the festive table. Lay a new one fancy tablecloth, pick up beautiful dishes, napkins with a New Year theme... Try to artistically put each dish on a dish and decorate with a slice of lemon, a sprig of dill, olives, cherry tomatoes. Place a figurine on the table that represents the symbol of the coming year.

Celebrating the New Year with your family is very fun, because you all know and love each other, which means you will not hesitate to joke and fool around. We offer you several options for entertainment activities that you can take on board and develop an entire celebration program.

• Cleaning tangerine in mittens. Speed ​​competition. Each of the family members puts on mittens and chooses a tangerine. After the words “Let's start! Attention! March! ”, Pronounced by one of the participants, everyone begins to peel their fruit, which is extremely problematic to do in woolen mittens. Whoever copes first is the winner.
• Search for personalized snowflakes. It is necessary to prepare and arrange in advance snowflakes with the names of family members written on them. Do not hide them too carefully, as the search can drag on and turn from fun into a tedious business. At the command "March!" participants start looking for snowflakes and collecting them. The bottom line is to collect all the snowflakes with only your name and do it faster than anyone.
• Comic divination... By tradition, on New Year's holidays, many are guessing, trying to find out what the coming year promises them. We propose to conduct a comic fortune-telling. To do this, you should prepare small leaves, write predictions on them, twist them into a tube or fold them into a square, put them in a hat or bucket. When the time approaches midnight, each of the family members will have to draw out a piece of paper at random and read their prediction.

We recommend that you do not write anything negative, and it would be best to dwell on funny prophecies like "You will be cheerful and energetic, the year will be great for you!"

We can talk forever about New Year and Christmas gifts. After all, choosing them is even more pleasant than receiving! And what a joy to see the smiles of loved ones and to hear words of gratitude!

Show your imagination, because even with the most modest means you can buy something really necessary and pleasant to your heart.

• Choosing a gift for mom, remember that she is not only your mother, but also a woman, which means that she may not be too happy with a frying pan or bedding set. Surely you know her clothing size (and if not, then look at the clothing tag or take measurements with a special tape) - buy her a beautiful pajamas or outfit for the house. If your budget allows, indulge Mommy with her favorite perfume or stylish jewelry.
• Father to please is a little harder. But there is a sure-fire option - choose a gift related to his hobby.If dad is an avid fisherman or hunter, then go to a specialized store and purchase a certificate for the amount you can afford. Also a good solution would be to buy a leather belt, key holder or wallet.
• Grandparents it is also advisable to give gifts related to their hobbies. If Granny loves to knit, give her a couple of skeins of good yarn or new knitting needles; grandpa is fond of board games - well, their choice is huge, buy something new, interesting and keep grandpa company.
• Sisters, brothers will be glad to newfangled gadgets. Wireless headphones, power banks, cases for phones and tablets - all this can be found in specialized retail outlets or ordered in the online store.
• Husband, wife best of all is to give what he / she wanted for a long time. You should know the tastes and wishes of your soulmate! Classic gifts for spouses are perfumes, jewelry, gadgets, leather goods (belts, bags, wallets).
• This is where you can walk around to your heart's content, it's in the choice of gifts for children! It can be toys, interesting colorful books, children's gadgets, and new clothes. Presenting a sweet gift is mandatory.

It's one thing to choose a gift, but it also needs to be properly decorated and presented. Here are some guidelines for this.

• DIY cardboard packaging.
• Wrap it in beautiful paper, tie a bow. You can add decorative elements in the form of Christmas tree branches, cones, artificial mistletoe berries, paper snowflakes.
• To prevent family members from getting confused about which gift is for whom, label each box with a name tag.

Finally, we offer you options for your family celebration.

• Choose an unusual theme. Have you celebrated New Years in Hawaii? And in Dracula's castle? What about a pirate ship? Host a party in any of the styles suggested by inviting guests to dress up in themed fancy dress. Prepare the appropriate dishes: if it is going to be a holiday stylized according to certain national traditions, find out a couple of recipes for the chosen cuisine; if your choice fell on the vampire ball, prepare more meat dishes, and serve berry juice and red wine as drinks - they can symbolize blood.
• Celebrate at the city's central Christmas tree... If you do not want to turn the New Year's Eve into eating food in front of the TV, get ready and the whole family go to the city Christmas tree: ride down the slides, fire up fireworks, arrange a battle with snowballs, blind a snowman! If your pastime is active, you will not freeze.

If you do not know what to give your loved ones for the New Year, see the ideas in the video below.