Our New Year's Eve Fondue Party

I love a tradition and I REALLY love an easy tradition.

For our family, a New Year’s Eve fondue party is exactly that kind of tradition.

I love a fondue party because it’s fun for everyone, kids and adults alike, and it’s very little work on my end as the hostess.

We host our fondue party on New Year’s Eve and it’s the perfect party to close out the year – my kids look forward to it every year and we generally invite Bart’s parents and his siblings and their families. On a few occasions, we’ve added in some of Bart’s cousins and their families too and last year we invited friends. One reason I love a fondue party is that it’s a party that can easily accommodate a lot of people with very little extra effort.

My parents gave me this fondue pot as a Christmas gift in 2004 and I’ve used it a million times since then.

Here’s the fondue recipe I use (if you can even call it a recipe – I usually double this fondue recipe because we tend to have 25ish people at our fondue party):

2 Tablespoons butter
1 bag of chocolate chips (I love this brand and I prefer semi-sweet so it’s not so sweet, but feel free to use milk chocolate if you prefer).
4-5 big marshmallows
Whipping cream as needed

I turn the fondue pot on, melt the butter in the pot and the pour in the chocolate chips and marshmallows. I stir with a spatula as it melts. When it’s smooth, add cream as needed to get it to the consistency you want!

We then put out a big spread of things to dip in the fondue and we ask guests to bring 1-2 items as well.

Here are some of our favorite things to dip in chocolate fondue:

Bananas
Strawberries
Raspberries
Donut holes
Oreos
Pound cake
Pretzels
One-bite brownies
Dried fruits
Apple chunks
Peanut butter filled pretzels
Marshmallows
Rice Krispy treats

But the sky’s the limit and it’s always fun to see what other people bring to dip in fondue!

I usually put out two of these big platters plus a few fancy cutting boards with all the food on them and then hand out fondue forks and everyone goes to town.

After fondue, we normally play a game or two – my favorite group game is Double Ditto and it’s perfect for an event like this because there is no limit to the number of players, it takes about two minutes to learn, kids and adults can play, and it’s just laugh-out-loud fun.

Generally, because our kids are young and because I value my sleep, we don’t stay up until midnight – the party usually runs from about 7-9 p.m. and then everyone heads home, our little kids go to bed and we watch a movie with our older girls.

A fondue party has become one of my favorite easy ways to ring out the old year as a family and with loved ones – if you do one this year, let me know how it goes!