Host a millennial party to usher in 2017

New Year’s Eve at home with friends is always paired with good food, great company and laughs all around.

The party guests take funny photos of each other, there’s dancing with loud music and crazy noisemakers. When the clock strikes 12, everyone has a toast with champagne and perhaps feast on a midnight meal.

But if you are the host of such an occasion it can cost a fortune.

Here are a few money-saving tips on how to host a memorable New Year’s party for your guests.

Party Food Ideas:

1.    Make it a BYOA (Bring Your Own Appetizer) affair.

Inform your guests that it is going to be a BYOA event. There are a great selection of affordable and easy appetizers that guests can bring. Even fruit and nuts or cheese and cracker platters will do.

Champagne sangria for midnight toasting is an easy, enjoyable way to cut down on champagne costs that will be appreciated by all.

Here’s how to make champagne sangria:

Ingredients

• 1l apple juice
• 350ml can frozen cranberry juice concentrate
• 250 ml orange juice
• 1 ½ of champagne
• Orange, kiwi and any other seasonal fruit slices.

Directions

• Keep items chilled (or frozen) until use.
• Combine the apple juice, cranberry juice concentrate, and orange juice in a large bowl. Stir well.
• Add sliced oranges, kiwi slices, and any other fruit you like.
• Slowly add the champagne at the last minute to keep it bubbly.

This recipe serves 12.

2.  Have a midnight dinner.

After the midnight toast, invite everyone to take part in a midnight dinner. A baked potato meal is easy to prepare, fun, and inexpensive.

Bake the biggest potatoes you can find, and follow up with dessert.

Here’s how:

Potatoes

Toppings (cheese, jalapenos, sour cream, broccoli, mushrooms)

Butter

Salt (to taste)

Place potatoes in the oven at 400 degrees at about 22:30. It should be done in about an hour.

Set out as many toppings as possible, try sour cream, bacon bits, chopped scallions, salsa, shredded cheese, jalapenos, chives, steamed broccoli, butter, mushrooms, chili, and anything else you’d like to add. Let your guests prepare their own potato and load it with the toppings they prefer.

For dessert, serve chocolate cake with white icing and coloured sprinkles. Serve with ice cream and a little hot fudge sauce.

3.    Timing.

Since you want to keep the party hopping until perhaps well past the midnight hour, consider starting at around 22:00.

Ask guests to write predictions for the New Year for a fun game.

Have your guests write down their predictions and place them into a bowl or a box. Then, during supper, take turns reading the predictions while everyone guesses who wrote them. It can be surprising how difficult it is to guess your friends’ predictions, and it’s a great way to wrap up the night.

Do not, under any circumstances, allow anyone to drive home intoxicated.

As an extra precaution, have a sober person drive the alcohol marinated friends home, or call a taxi, or take their keys and let them sleep over. A simple bacon, eggs and toast breakfast served with coffee will suite these overnight guests just fine, especially those with hangovers.

Please share your plans or ideas for this New Year’s Eve with us as well as any good on how to host a successful party.