Party plans are one type of writing activity that will help students develop their planning and critical-thinking skills as well as their ability to clearly communicate instructions. Let students decide on a type of New Year's party they would like to throw, then write a detailed plan that describes what setting, materials, people and action would be needed to make the party happen. Depending on the scale of the project, it may be best to have students work together in small groups.
A descriptive or narrative writing assignment could have students writing about real or fictional New Year's memories. For a creative writing assignment, pick an unusual or notable situation as a starting prompt. For example, students could write a story about an emergency at a New Year's Eve party or getting lost on the way to a family celebration and trying to arrive before midnight struck. Real-life memories could involve prompts such as a favorite New Year's celebration or the first time students got to stay up until midnight.
To help students work on their persuasive writing skills, you can assign them to write about a New Year's resolution they believe everybody should adopt. The assignment could include such elements as a description of the resolution, a rationale describing the beneficial effects the resolution (or universal adoption of it) would have, objections they foresee, responses to those objections and a practical plan for how the average reader could implement the resolution in real life.
A research paper on New Year's traditions around the world provides an appropriate seasonal focus and allows students to work on their research and descriptive skills. A major benefit of this writing exercise is that most nations and cultures have some sort of special celebration of the new year, even if they celebrate it at a different time, so every student can explore a different culture. Students may even find it interesting to hear each others' reports presented orally or with multimedia.