Your guide to activities and fun things to do with your preschoolers, toddlers and kids in Pasadena, CA

When your kids are tiny, a new year's celebration seems to be one of very few ways to go:

1. it's a night like any other: dinner, bath, bed; or
2. dinner, bath, bed and get a sitter. Get dressed up, take a taxi to a nearby swanky hotel (they almost always host a celebration of some kind for stray revelers), have a few grownup beverages with friends, toast the new year, and taxi home; or
3. variation on above: attend a swanky get-together someone else hosts after the tots are in bed; or
   
4. invite a group of parents with young kids to an early potluck dinner and, depending on your time zone, ring in New Zealand or France's new year. A new year is a new year, right?
   

I've never stayed up with my child when he was a baby to ring the new year in. If we were lucky, we didn't have a sick person in the house. Given that a lot of Savvy Source readers have children between the ages of newborn to five, it's not all that likely that everyone will be cold/flu free.

But, so long as everyone's in good health, why not try picking a country/time zone of your choice, and making a family party themed to that country's foods or traditions that will celebrate the clock turning past midnight when you're ready to have dinner? Start around 5 pm your time, and by the time the kids' bedtimes have rolled around, you won't feel like you've missed too much.

And if you simply stayed in and had a quiet night, don't worry. There's always the great Tournament of Roses parade with floats and marching bands that's fun to watch the next day on tv.