New Year's Eve Time Capsule Ideas (FREE Printable)

Start a new tradition this year by putting things into a New Year’s Eve time capsule to open next year! This free time capsule printable and tons of time capsule ideas make it easy to do a time capsule for this year or even for the decade!

This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase via these links, I may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you.

New Year’s Eve Time Capsule Activity

While I absolutely love to play New Year’s Eve games at New Year’s Eve parties, it’s always fun to do other things as well. I mean you have all night!

This activity is meant to be used as both a reflection of the past year and also a fun thing to use for next year’s New Year’s Eve celebration. And it’s perfect for kids, teens, and adults!

The most fun thing about this time capsule activity this year is that not only could you do a time capsule for this year, you could actually do a decade time capsule as well.

Put things in from this year then open it again at the end of the decade to see how much changed. I can guarantee more will have changed in 10 years than in one.

What is a Time Capsule?

If you’ve never done a time capsule before, the basic idea is that you put things into a sealed container at some point and then don’t open it again for a certain length of time.

One year.

One decade.

50 years.

However long you choose – but you can’t open it. The idea is that the time capsule will give you a glimpse back at what life was like when you put the items in the time capsule.

Time Capsule Supplies

If you’re going to create time capsule at a New Year’s Eve party with friends, I recommend telling people ahead of time so they can bring items to put into the capsule.

If you’re doing it with just your family, you will really just need to get time capsule containers ahead of time and everything else you can probably find in your home.

The main things you’ll need include:

Time capsule printable pages (get the PDF toward the bottom of this post)
Pens for people to fill out the time capsule
Items to put in the time capsule
Time capsule containers

1 – Things to Put in a Time Capsule

The time capsule printable in this post has a checklist of items to put in the time capsule (pictures, napkin from a favorite restaurant, trinket or toys), but that’s just a starting point. Here are some other ideas of things you could put into the capsule as well.

Newspaper or magazine clippings of important events from the year
Gear from your favorite sports team
Favorite book or movie
A tool or gadget you use all the time
Something that has a lot of sentimental value to you (maybe make a copy to put in there if it’s valuable or you don’t want to lose it)
Copies of plane tickets, concert tickets, etc.
Photos
Toys/small trinkets/items that mean something to you or represent the year (like fidget spinners a few years ago)
Napkins, menus, brochures from favorite restaurants/stores
Box or wrapper from a favorite treat/snack/drink
One of these albums or a copy of this New Year’s Eve playlist

Like for instance, this year my time capsule might include:

A printed Baby Yoda meme
One of the photos we took with our new baby in the hospital
A couple of photos from family trips from the year
An empty bag of Pizza Goldfish
The empty special Star Wars gift card from A Galaxy’s Edge
Coal cards from my viral saran wrap game post

2 – Printable Time Capsule Questions/Goals

The printable at the bottom of this post also includes a sheet of accomplishments from the past year and goals for the upcoming year. Put one or both into the capsule and when you open it next year, you’ll get to see if you accomplished those goals.

Tip – write the goals down somewhere other than just in the time capsule so you remember them and can actually work on them! That way you won’t have to open the time capsule to remember what they were.

3 – What to Use for Your Time Capsule

Okay so here’s the big question – you’ve gathered all of the items and filled out the printable time capsule form. Now what? What are you going to put your time capsule items into?

You’ll want to get something that’s big enough to hold the papers and a few items (you can always fold the papers), not see through, and something you can seal or at least close to put away for the year.

Here are a few ideas that would work depending on what you’re putting in your capsule:

Dark colored jars with lids
Padded envelopes (in case you have anything fragile you’re including)
Black plastic paint cans

How to Create a Time Capsule

Creating the time capsule is really just as simple as filling out the printable pages, putting all of your items in the container you chose, and sealing it all up.

I recommend putting some sort of label on the outside so you know what the time capsule is and don’t accidentally open it when you’re decluttering your house for spring cleaning. Just something that says “time capsule XXXX” with the year name instead of XXXX. You’ll be really sad if you open the time capsule before the year is up on accident!

Another tip – put a reminder on your calendar for December 30th of next year to go find the time capsules and get them out to look at! That’s one of the most fun parts of the activity – looking at it a year (or 10) down the road.