Families celebrate New Year’s Eve at Kids Night

Kids like to celebrate New Year’s Eve, too, but not all can manage to stay up until midnight to ring in the new year. Those who wanted to party early came downtown to check out Kids Night activities at the Spokane Convention Center.

“We have kids,” said Jesse Hutson, who came to the event with his fiancee and their two children. “We wanted them to have something to do on New Year’s Eve.”

Kids Night is part of the annual First Night event in downtown Spokane that includes a parade, free carousel rides in Riverfront Park, music, dancing and fireworks at midnight.

Hutson said he liked that Kids Night had music and crafts, and wasn’t expensive. “We decided to come down and try it out,” he said as his kids made oversized hats out of white paper bags. “It’s been fun.”

He also liked that most of the events were inside and not spread all over downtown. The event footprint shrunk this year, as organizers tried to entice more people to attend by eliminating much of the need to walk from venue to venue.

“We don’t have to walk around outside,” Hutson said.

The theme of this year’s event was “Midnight in Wonderland,” and “Alice in Wonderland” references were everywhere, particularly in the crafts kids were making. First-time volunteer Ginger Alberry was helping children make flower pins out of cut-up playing cards.

“The parents have to help because it’s hard for the little ones, but it’s fun,” she said.

The pins turned out wonderfully, but that’s not what caught everyone’s attention. Alberry was dressed in an extravagant Mad Hatter outfit that she made for Halloween several years ago. Her mostly brown jacket was accented with orange, and bright orange, bushy eyebrows sat just below the brim of her hat.

People were asking to take her picture all afternoon, Alberry said. She and her 14-year-old daughter planned to take in all the First Night activities after Kids Night ended.

Sharon Murphy brought her 3-year-old granddaughter, Delaney Murphy, to Kids Night. She’s a First Night regular and has been coming downtown to ring in the new year for years. “We’ve missed very few,” she said.

What brings Murphy back is the sense of community and celebration of the arts, she said. Her granddaughter seemed pleased by festivities, showing off a mask she decorated as she danced to the beat of music nearby.

Murphy was among those who planned to make an early night of it and not brave the midnight temperatures, which were expected to be in the teens. She planned to take her granddaughter to the parade set to start just after 6 p.m., then it would be off to dinner before going home.

“We’ll probably be in bed by 9 o’clock,” she said.