New Year’s Eve games at home: an hour-by-hour plan to midnight and beyond

The evening at a glance

New Year’s Eve falls on a Thursday this year, with New Year’s Day a holiday on the Friday, which makes it a good year for a night in. These fun games to play on New Year’s Eve need no printouts, just paper slips, a bowl and good company:

• 7 pm, as people arrive: the resolution guessing game
• 8 pm, for the kids: an early countdown
• 9 pm, for everyone: hot and cold out loud, and a word that arrives at midnight
• 10 pm, for adults: the hat game
• 11 pm, looking back: the family year quiz, then two truths and a lie
• 11:55 pm: the countdown, the customs and Auld Lang Syne

Move the times around to suit your crowd. The order matters more than the clock.

7 pm: the resolution guessing game

Hand everyone a slip of paper as they come in. Each person writes one resolution for next year, folds it and drops it into a bowl. No names.

Later in the evening, someone reads them out one by one and the room guesses who wrote each one. “Learn the ukulele” is easy to place. “Be nicer to the cat” takes some arguing. It’s a gentle icebreaker for New Year’s Eve parties at home, because people talk about themselves without having to make a speech.

8 pm: an early midnight for the little ones

The best New Year’s Eve games for families start early. Many families hold a pretend countdown so younger kids can celebrate before bed. Make it feel real: gather everyone, dim the lights, and count down from ten.

For a word twist, give each number a job. At ten, someone names something they’re looking forward to next year; at nine, the next person; and so on down to one. Then cheers, a song and bedtime, with the kids none the wiser about the real hour.

9 pm: hot and cold out loud, and the year’s first word

This is the game that works for every age at once. One person thinks of a word. The others call out guesses, and the thinker answers only with temperatures: freezing, cold, warmer, hot, you’re burning. Whoever finds the word thinks of the next one. A New Year’s word list helps: confetti, calendar, toast, fireworks, resolution, midnight.

There’s a nice bonus for tonight. The daily word game Warmer Warmer works exactly like this, by meaning, and a new secret word appears at midnight, your own midnight. So the minute the year turns, the year’s first word of the day is already waiting. It’s free, runs in the browser and needs no app or sign-up. Here’s how a game could go if the secret word were sparkler:

1. calendar72 °FCool: the right night, the wrong idea
2. party124 °FWarm: we’re celebrating
3. candle136 °FWarm: something small that burns
4. fireworks176 °FHot: lights and fizz
5. spark190 °FScorching: almost in your hand
6. sparklerFound it!

Try it now, so you know what you’re doing when the clock strikes twelve:

Try it now: what’s your first guess?

Guess

Your word goes straight into today’s game.

On New Year’s Day, everyone guesses the same word on their own phone, family or friends wherever they are. Whoever found it in the fewest guesses gets the first boast of the year.

10 pm: the hat game for adults

Known as the hat game in the UK and often as Celebrity or Fishbowl in the US, this is a favorite New Year’s Eve game for adults and large groups.

Everyone writes five names on slips of paper: famous people, characters, anyone the room will know. All the slips go into a hat or a bowl. Split into two teams. The game has three rounds with the same slips:

1. Describe it. Say anything except the name itself. Get through as many slips as you can in a minute.
2. One word only. Now you get a single word per slip. Everyone remembers round one, so it works.
3. Act it out. No words at all.

By round three the room has its own private jokes, and that is exactly the point.

11 pm: looking back at the year

The last hour is for the year that’s ending, and two quiet games fit it well.

The family year quiz. When people arrive, along with the resolution slips, ask everyone to think of two questions about the year. They have to be about the people in the room: “Where did we get lost in the summer?” “What did Grandpa name the new tomato plant?” Ask them now, while the snacks go round. Whoever answers first gets a point, and the person who asked can award a bonus point for the funniest wrong answer.

Two truths and a lie, year edition. Each person tells three things that happened to them this year. Two are true, one is invented. The others vote on the lie. It’s calm enough for the hour, and you will learn something new about someone you thought you knew.

11:55 pm: the countdown and its customs

However you spent the evening, the last minutes belong to tradition.

In the US, many people watch the ball drop in Times Square in New York on television, counting down the last ten seconds out loud, with noisemakers, a toast and a kiss at midnight.

In the UK, many people count down to the chimes of Big Ben on television, while fireworks light up the Thames in London. In Scotland, New Year is Hogmanay, and many keep the custom of first-footing: the first visitor to cross the threshold after midnight is said to bring luck for the year, especially when bearing small gifts such as coal, shortbread or salt.

On both sides of the Atlantic, people sing “Auld Lang Syne”, with words by the Scottish poet Robert Burns. Its title means roughly “old long since”, or days gone by, which makes a good quiz question for the room just before twelve.

After midnight

Once the cheering stops, read out the last resolutions from the bowl and see who still stands by theirs. If you’re still up, the year’s first secret word has already arrived, and a quiet guess on the sofa is a gentle way to end the night.

Looking for more ideas for the long winter evenings? Try word games for family night or word association games for adults. And the full rules of the game behind the 9 pm round are in the hot and cold word game.