Off-beat New Year’s Eve house party ideas so you can keep the sparkle at home – literally.

House the fun!

By Shradha Aswani

With New Year just around the corner, I was hoping to bring back the fun by hosting a coming-together of everyone I liked. Call this my way to escape small talk or save myself from overwhelming crowds, but once I put the planning hat on, I was left with a list of activities that could make celebrating New Year's Eve in-house innovative, fun, and inclusive for controversially old-school Millennials like me.

THEME & DÉCOR

1. Host a funeral for 2022. Have friends and family make speeches about what they loved about the year and the memories they would cherish. Décor and costumes can follow the all-white/all-black theme to mark the proverbial letting go.
2. Follow the 'power-point presentation' party trend, but this time, attendees have to convincingly present a prediction they have for the new year. This could be a flood drowning the world, or the influencer of the group becoming the next big celebrity.
3. A new-year party listicle is incomplete without a recap-theme suggestion, and what can be better for desis than Bollywood? Dress up in iconic Bollywood celebrity looks from the past year, or better yet, add a twist and flex your creative muscles by dressing up as a hot Bollywood scandal that happened in the last year – and see who'll get it right. This way, you could educate novices like me of the gossip that has been the talk of the town!

COSTUMES

1. Not all costume parties need to have extravagant costumes. You could have people don casual tees featuring a resolution that they broke in the past year in big, block letters – wear your shame! If your party has friends from the same group, it may be fun to have them dress in each other's 'signature' outfits of the year, and pretend to be the person they are dressed as through the night.
2. Let your party be a trend-setter for the year to come. Have attendees dress in styles they would like to go viral in the new year, or get them to embrace the fashion they foresee that Generation Alpha will wear.
3. Have a 'Manifest Costume Party' where everyone dons a look personifying a wish or quality that they want to manifest for themselves in the new year – watch out for the friend who'll walk in wearing just dollar bills!

FOOD & DRINK

1. Pack a punch with a cocktail/mocktail potluck, where guests are asked to bring interesting concoctions based on their new year's resolutions, or any other agreed upon theme.
2. With cheese and butter boards doing the rounds on the internet, let your imaginations run wild for this NYE party. Ask everyone to create and bring funky, Indian-food boards spanning chaats, nibbles, and desserts. You can even go with desi
   versions of other 2022 food trends just for the kick.
3. With the festive season testing your gut and liver almost every day, envisioning a detox diet in the new year is common. How about you celebrate an indulgent evening with a potluck of guilty food pleasures that guests want to decrease in the new year?

FUN, GAMES AND MUSIC

1. Spice up the fun with a group game that involves everyone, like a murder-mystery to find out who was behind the butchering of hope in the past year, or even a treasure hunt to land upon prosperity and bliss for the coming year. This shall help people bond and actually step away from the mundane, even if just for a few hours.
2. Organise a Kaun Banega Crorepati-style trivia night for peculiar events that had marked 2022, or good old antakshari (limited to songs from this year) that guests play in teams.
3. Have a lip sync battle with songs from the last year, with points for costumes, props, and panache. Make the fight juicier by gifting the winner goodies and food, or have everyone contribute THB 100 (or more) to a jackpot prize.