Happy New Year!

Boston offers families plenty of opportunities to ring out 2011 and welcome in the new year. Families can choose from the first-in-the-nation First Night celebration to kid-friendly celebrations at area museums, plus ice skating at outdoor rinks, New Year’s Day hikes and historic walks to start the New Year out on the right foot. Most of the holiday events of 2011 wrap up this weekend, and, if the New England weather cooperates, local ski areas will be making snow and grooming their trails.

Read on for details, and enjoy!

It's the last weekend of 2011, so why not do it up right? We already gave you ideas for celebrating New Year's Eve with the kiddies, but there is some daytime to fill up as well. Why not make a noisemaker for the big night or go to the last holiday movie night of the year or have a big First Night celebration? We hope you have a happy 2012, NJ!

     It's New Year's weekend! 

New Year's Eve celebrations dominate this weekend, so you'll find lots of NYE celebratory events for your family (see our New Year's Eve events roundup). For New Year's Day, it's time to get out and get in touch with nature with a New Year's Day hike and and a seal cruise.

Happy New Year!

I must confess—I have a soft spot for “Disney On Ice”. Generally, we don’t cotton to the expensive, big-name events here at Mommy Poppins, but I’ve seen the icy Disney twice now and even without being much of a figure-skatin’ fan, I’m sold. Read on for more information on how to win a family four-pack of tickets to “Disney On Ice presents Mickey and Minnie's Magical Journey” at either the Nassau Coliseum, Prudential Center or Izod Center, all in NJ!

Disney on Ice is coming back to Nassau Coliseum. This time Mickey and Minnie are visiting Lilo and Stitch, Simba and Nala, Ariel and Sebastian, and Peter Pan and Tinker Bell. And you and your family can be there on opening night. One lucky winner will receive a family four-pack to the Thursday, January 5, 2012 show at 7pm.

As you can tell from the photo, we were foolhardy enough to venture over to Rockefeller Center last weekend. We saw the tree—for about two seconds before the crowd pushed us on. We also hit the Lego Store—and then had to flee due to claustrophobia. Dealing with the massive crowds just reinforced how much we love being New Yorkers: Other people just visit, we live here. We can see Rock Center anytime! (But never again around the holidays. Yikes).

This week we expanded our already chock-full Holiday Guide with posts about cool things to do over holiday break, and family fun on Christmas Eve and Day. We also included an inspiring video about our wonderful world in our final 2011 biweekly news roundup.

And that's just a bit of what's going on. Here's what we covered this week on Mommy Poppins in NYC, New Jersey, Long Island and Connecticut, as well as selected stories from our sites in Boston and Los Angeles. Wishing you a very happy holiday season from all of us at Mommy Poppins.

Whether you're celebrating Christmas or Hanukkah or both, we’ve got the events for you (with even some Christmas Eve Eve fun thrown in). Catch a holiday-inspired flick, sit on Santa's lap before he jets off (or jets in to Princeton), visit a WinterFest and enjoy plenty of holiday treats. Have a merry one!

Congratulations, folks; we've made it. We've spent weeks preparing, planning, shopping, making our lists and checking them twice, posing for holiday pictures and sending missives to our entire address book, and finally our hard work has paid off. The holidays have arrived.

No doubt many of you plan to spend Christmas Day home with friends and family. For those of you looking for activities outside the home, good news: we're here to help. First up, we offer 10 Things to Do on Christmas Day. And if your kitchen closes on Christmas Day, we present a list of Restaurants that are Open.

For holiday cheer that continues on into next week, might we suggest some of LA's finest Christmas Light Displays (and, if you're willing to hop on the freeway, More Christmas Light Displays outside of Los Angeles).

Take a break from wrapping (or unwrapping) your presents, and continue reading for some of our favorite picks for this holiday weekend.