It happens every year, time to begin again with the New Year. I don’t know about you, but where I live New Year’s is frigid cold and miserable. This year my husband and I decided to say ‘screw it’ and through a luau inspired New Year’s Eve bash. So step one to any great party was already decided – a theme!

The Décor

In order to create a luau atmosphere in the middle of a blizzard, we put out multiple tables and decorated each one with a beach, ocean theme.

Many of the inflatables we used came from our local dollar store, my favorite place to get party decorations.

In addition, my husband has a shell collection and we used this to reinforce the beach theme. I bought brightly colored table cloths and then covered them with netting from the dollar store.

Finally, we put up several fun party lights to add the extra New Year’s Eve feel.

The Food

For the food I did a combination of traditional (in my mind) New Year’s Eve food and fun luau dishes.

For the main dish I did a crowd favorite – Hawaiian Ham Sliders. The only difficult part of this dish is spelling ‘Hawaiian’. Other luau inspired food included a variety of fruit, which I also used as decoration.

For traditional New Year’s food I made Little Smokies, a meat and cheese tray, then a cracker and dip dish known as ‘Bait’.

The Drinks

Before our party I put out a survey to guests asking them to name their favorite beach drink. The guests overwhelming voted for margaritas. Now my job would be to make a large batch of margaritas for our party guests.

My recipe for Robert’s Margaritas is great because it uses ingredients found at your local supercenter with no fancy liquors.

I also bought a bag of frozen strawberries and a bag of peaches. I thawed these and blended them so that guests could flavor their margarita if desired. In addition, I put out my personal sized blender and a plate of sugar, salt, and lime juice in order to decorate the rim of the glass.

For kiddos at the party I simply mixed the soda used in the recipe with strawberries to make a fun kid-friendly ‘mocktail’.

The Activities

I don’t know about you but staying up to midnight in order to welcome in the New Year is a task for me. In order to keep guests occupied and awake, I set up a table with an assortment of fun games so that guests could entertain themselves until the bell strikes midnight.