When you’re little, celebrating New Year’s Eve is really just a fun reason to have special food, and this menu doesn’t disappoint! Offering a buffet of simple but festive fare is the way we love to ring in the new year with our own brood of four.

Create a kids’ table with party hats and noisemakers at each place. It doesn’t have to be elaborate; just throw a sheet over the craft table and get them set up. Then offer a buffet, lined with all the food. Set it out all at once, or in a couple of shifts. The second way, kids have a better chance of seeing everything.

Cereal is never a tough sell for kiddos. Mix it up in this savory way (minus the hot sauce) and serve in little party cups.

Here’s a simple way to get more veggies into your kids: Mix them with delicious cheese and serve as dip, like this one with spinach from Food Network Magazine. Offer a few options for dipping — like bread sticks, crackers and pita wedges — and let the kids pick and choose.

I have been making Ina Garten's masterpiece, featured in Food Network Magazine, since long before I had kids. Now I make it for the kids, and I use kielbasa instead of lamb. But still, amazing.  Serve it fresh out of the oven.

If you can boil water, you can make The Pioneer Woman’s colorful skewers kids will love — and you can make them in advance. Just thread cooked and cooled tortellini on a stick, along with cherry tomatoes and fresh mozzarella cubes.

It takes only five ingredients to make Trisha Yearwood's kid-friendly mix, and none of them are spicy the way most party nuts are.

Ree Drummond’s veggie-filled rolls are a colorful way to get plenty of fresh peppers (skip the green onions for the kids’ table).

Take that leftover Christmas candy and turn it into a crowd-pleasing dessert with this easy bar cookie recipe, studded with chopped-up chocolates in every shape and flavor.

Or let the kids make their own dessert! Melt some chocolate, then supply the pretzels (any shape will work) plus sprinkles. Tip: Give each kid a baking sheet to use as a work space. That’ll help keep messes to a minimum.

Charity Curley Mathews is a mother of four small kids who lives in North Carolina. When she isn’t loading the dishwasher, she writes for Foodlets.com, a site full of simple and fresh recipes for young families plus tried-and-true strategies for teaching kids to love real food. Either that or she’s unloading the dishwasher.