New Year’s Eve Family Activity

Holidays are a great opportunity to start spiritual conversations at home.  Here’s a fun, family tradition that I shared last year on the blog.  I’m rolling it out again because it was such a powerful experience for our family, and we will definitely be making it an annual tradition.  I hope it blesses your family too!

Holiday: New Year’s Eve

Verse to Remember: Lord, I will remember what you did. Yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. – Psalm 77:11 NIrV

Opening Activity:

Make a family timeline. Write the name of each of the twelve months on a piece of paper and challenge your kids to see how much they can remember that happened in your family’s life in 2015 and write them by the month when they occurred. Include big things and small things, good things and bad things.

For example, you might list things like getting a new pet, having a birthday, starting a new school year, going on vacation, catching the flu, welcoming a new baby brother or sister or even losing a loved one.

Read the Devo together:

Do you think you have a good memory?  How much can you remember that happened in 2015?  Have you noticed that people do a lot of remembering this time of year? Everywhere you look on TV, in magazines and on the internet, people are remembering the best and worst things that happened in 2015. They talk about the biggest news stories, the biggest movies and other special things that happened.

But way more important than remembering all of that stuff is remembering what God has done. New Year’s Eve can be a fun time to look back at the last year and remember the cool things God has been up to in our lives.

Look At the Bible:

In the book of Joshua, the Bible talks about how important it is to remember what God has done. For years and years and years, God had been promising to give His special people, the Israelites, their very own country, a place called the promised land. They used to be slaves in Egypt, but God rescued them, and in this story He does a miracle by stopping the water of a river so the people could cross over to their new home.

Wow, what a big day! The Israelites got a brand new home thanks to God’s amazing power, and they didn’t even have to get wet going there.  God did not want His people to forget the awesome things He had done.  He didn’t want them to forget how much He loved them, so here is what He told them to do.

Read Joshua 4:1-7 together. 

What did Joshua have the people do? How do you think they felt every time they saw that pile of stones?

Bring It Home

Let’s look at our family timeline. Look at all of these things that happened to us this last year. Which months do you think God was with us?  One month?  Two?  No, God was with us every single day.  What are some things on our list that we can thank God for? Where did God show up this year? What are some hard things that He helped us through?

Remembering the cool things God has done gives us courage to face the future.  The same God who was with us this past year, promises to be with us in the new year no matter what.

Prayer:

God, thank you for all that you did in our family this past year. Help us to remember how good You are as we go into the new year. Amen.

Extra Activity:

For an extra activity, make your own monument just like the Israelites did.  Get out the art supplies and have kids draw pictures that remind them of some of the good things God did in your family in the past year.  Put those pictures somewhere your family will see them as you go into the new year together.