10 Senior Activity Ideas for New Year’s Eve

new years eve senior activities

Need help coming up with a New Year’s themed activity for your residents? Consider planning some of these activities from notjustbingo.com to celebrate the New Year!

1. Champagne Brunch – Help residents countdown to 12 o’clock noon in your facility’s Dining Room during a champagne brunch. Provide hats and horns for residents to wear, and play music in the background for residents to enjoy as they eat their meal.

2. Noisemaker Band – Invite residents to join your facility’s New Year’s Eve band as you pass out noisemakers for residents to play along to music. Be sure to also pass out New Year’s Eve hats for the band members to wear!

3. Time’s Running Out! Discussion – Invite residents to reflect and reminisce upon 2017 and all the fun events and activities from the year. Go around the room and ask residents to list the things that they wished they had done during 2017. Finally, ask residents to name at least one New Year’s resolution that they have for 2018.

4. Countdown Happy Hour – Serve a variety of non-alcoholic drinks for residents to sample during a fun happy hour social as you countdown the hours to 2018. Beforehand, decorate your Activity Room with festive decorations like New Year’s hanging swirls and whirl decorations.

5. New Year’s Eve Dessert Party – Coordinate with Dining Services to provide an array of classic desserts for residents to taste test during a dessert party after dinner on New Year’s Eve. Add a bit of shimmer to the activity by hanging a shimmering chandelier as the centerpiece of the dessert party in your Activity Room.

new years eve senior residents

6. Confetti Throwing Game – Pass out bags of confetti (large pieces for easier clean-up) or silly string and toss around small balloons during a fun confetti throwing party game. To play the game, seat residents in two rows of chairs facing one another. Countdown from 10 and have residents toss as much confetti and as many balloons to the other side for about a minute. Encourage residents to throw back any confetti or balloons that land on them or on their side. The object of the game is to have the least amount of confetti on your side when time is up.

7. New Year’s Eve Fashion Show – Invite residents to participate in a dressed-up fashion show in your Activity Room before dinner. Set up a New Year’s curtain for residents to walk through to show off their dressy attire for the evening.

8. Dance Contest – Pair residents together to dance the night away as they compete in a fun dance contest. Ask several residents who are unable to dance to be the judges who get to politely ask the “bad dancers” to leave the floor.

9. Masquerade Ball – Provide ready-to-wear masks for residents to wear for a New Year’s Eve masquerade ball. If time permits, have residents make their own masks earlier in the day.

10. Bubble Party – Play upbeat music and set up a bubble machine for your lower-functioning residents to enjoy on New Year’s Eve.

About notjustbingo.com

notjutbingo.comnotjustbingo.com is an online resource of fun, senior activity ideas for activity professionals of nursing homes and assisted living facilities. They have been providing fun activity ideas online since 2009, and we continue to assist activity professionals across the country by creating meaningful and engaging activity ideas for their residents that go “beyond bingo.” Don’t get them wrong – bingo is fun, but we want to spread the word that there is more to life than just bingo. Overall, notjustbingo.com feels privilege to help activity directors better the living experiences of their residents while demonstrating that a senior’s quality of life can actually improve when they move to a nursing facility.

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3 thoughts on “10 Senior Activity Ideas for New Year’s Eve

  1. Pingback: How the Senile Celebrate New Year’s Eve — Goodman Speaks on Climate

  2. I am always looking for idea’s to have a fun time at the senior center, especially after the holidays when everyone is kind of down, want them to laugh and have fun.

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