Posted by Lia…

I’ll be honest – I’ve always found New Year’s Eve  a strange holiday that never quite lives up to its promise.  I think it’s funny that its main purpose is to get lots of people assembled in one area for the sole reason of watching a clock.  As it were, I always try to make the best of it and in the last few years have either attended, or thrown, a house party.  The one problem with house parties I’ve found,  however, is that the attendees tend to be random groups of friends that sometimes don’t know each other well. While I always seem to meet people around the dip and cheese plates, because that is where I spend the majority of my party-going time no matter the holiday, for those more healthily inclined, ice breakers are sometimes needed.

One easy way to do this is through two things any good New Year’s party should have on hand- Solo cups and resolutions. 

Resolutions always tend to be grouped among similar topics – health, fitness, love, family, organization, travel, culture, finance, etc. So, buy different colored Solo cups and print one of these broad subjects  – one topic per color – on them using black permanent marker.

Then, ask guests to take the cup color that corresponds to their number one resolution and use the marker to write down their specific 2010 goal.  People with similar colored cups will have a common ground to start on, or in the instance that a conversation gets stuck,  the cups provide at least a small thread to get it back going.  Eventually, the drinks in the cups will handle the rest!