Great Pinecone Drop canceled for 2021 due to omicron concerns
Canceled: The Great Pinecone Drop at the Weatherford Hotel
Farewell 2021, we’re ready to let you go,2022 is welcomed with a big hello. Admittedly, it’s not the same as watching the Great Pinecone Drop in-person, but you can enjoy all the action of a previous pinecone drop from the comfort of your own home with the video below.
Twenty-three years ago, the Great Pinecone Drop became Flagstaff’s New Year’s Eve tradition in 1999, when the Weatherford Hotel rang in the new millennium and honored the Hotel’s 100-year anniversary. Since then, thousands have gathered in the streets for the countdown into the New Year and the lowering of the Pinecone followed by a brief fireworks display.
For more than 100 years, the Weatherford Hotel has punctuated the Flagstaff skyline, enduring many changes and historical milestones.
Last year, the tradition was nuanced and occurred VIRTUALLY as revelers carried-out and settled-in for the Great Pinecone Drop watched on pineconedrop.com with a special performance by the Flagstaff Symphony Orchestra Brass Quintet.
A DIY pinecone drop from home!
If there was ever a time for an in-home small gathering New Year’s Eve celebration, this is it. But how do you and your family ring in the New Year with Flagstaff style?
For thought starters:
Prepare the traditional pinecone to be dropped.
- Make it simple: Get your crew together. Paint or spray adhesive onto pinecones, add various colored glitter, string them together and gently hoist them down a tree? Too cold outside, hoist the pinecone from a door, a floor lamp, from something tall inside your home . . . you get the idea. Make it work for you.
- Perhaps it’s carving a pinecone from Styrofoam, painting it the various colors represented on The Weatherford Hotel’s original pinecone, and then sliding a wooden dowel in the center in which it can slide down.
- Think about your own count down mechanism which could be as simple as using your smart phone’s timer. Assign someone to actually start the timer, give them a drum roll introduction.