I am not sure, my ds wants to. If I let him, then the others will want to also and I am afraid I will pay the price the next day!!

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~Happiness is a large family~

Well, I don't have kids, but I sure remember LOVING to stay up until midnight when I was a kid. I remember being really silly and doing all kinds of things for the FIRST TIME in the new year. I would always say, "This is the first time I tied my shoes in 1984" or "This is the first time I did a jumping jack in 1985." Gosh, what memories.

So. . .I'd say go for it. Maybe they won't even be able to stay awake that long. Why not serve some kind of drink (non-alcoholic, of course) and toast the new year. Or, say a family prayer after midnight, if you are into that. Watching the ball drop is fun, too.

Of course, I can say all this because I won't be the one dealing with grumpy kids on January 1st!

We let our kids stay up. It's only one night and we don't have plans for the next day. I say why not! We usually have my SIL and her family stay the night, so it's like a slumber party with their cousin.

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Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you. ~Oscar Wilde

I let mine stay up! They think that is the best thing ever, since they normally go to bed at 8 or 9!

We usually let them try to stay up - they usually don't make it.

Donna Erickson was on Kare11 yesterday morning with fun family tips for celebrating New Years Eve ~ one thing she mentioned for the little ones was moving the clock ahead a couple of hours and celebrating early. Say if you move your clock so it says midnight at 9 -10pm, they think they have celebrated, and they still get to bed at a normal time. The older ones then can stay up if you choose to let them to celebrate at the "real" midnight. Her theory is that it's midnight somewhere, and you shouldn't have to lose your sanity the next day.

Happy new Year

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Last year we did it, we let them stay up till 12:30, by then they were exhausted!

We're going to do it again this year, they feel very important that they get to celebrate the new Year's with us , and they love making the noise in the middle of the night .
It's only once a year, and I love to make them feel that it's a celebration day to enjoy! It will be a lazy nothing day tomorrow, so, they'll nap and relax before going back to school on Tuesday.

We give them the option to stay up...but they are normally snoring way before then...but we make a party out of it...it's my oldest DS's birthday...so we have lots of finger foods to eat, play family games, watch movies...until the new year approaches...it happens only once a year...so why not let them celebrate too!!

Not to mention, our neighbors do this big thing with fireworks...they are so big, it's amazing...so we sit on the front porch and watch them too!!

I let them because then they sleep longer in the morning and then I can sleep longer!!!

I would have to say let them. I would think they would sleep in later the next day which would prevent them from being grumpy anyway.

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"Before I was a Mom I didn't know the feeling of having my heart outside my body." ~Anonymous

I have always been fanatical about bedtimes but the 2 times I do let my DS stay up late are New Year's Eve and 4th of July. We don't have to get up early tomorrow so we can sleep in and still be rested for school on Tuesday. He's 9 now but even at 5-6 I would make him take a nap later in the day to be sure he had enough rest. I must admit though that I wouldn't mind celebrating at 11:00 instead of midnight - since we're in the Central time zone all the fun stuff on TV happens at 11:00. Unfortunately my DS is too old to fool him with that so we'll be out past midnight tonight!

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Better to give your kids the values you have
than the valuables you can't afford.