2 unique Arizona traditions set for New Year’s Eve, 1 canceled

PHOENIX — Arizonans who see a giant illuminated boot or deuce of clubs dropping from the sky on New Year’s Eve could be perfectly sober.

Two Arizona cities — Prescott and Show Low — will be celebrating the new year with their own unique traditions. Flagstaff, however, called off its countdown ritual.

Prescott will be dropping a cowboy boot and Show Low will drop a deuce of clubs playing card in place of the traditional ball.

The 6-foot illuminated cowboy boot will drop at Prescott’s historic Whiskey Row. The boot will be slowly lowered from a 40-foot flagpole on top of the Palace building.

It will drop twice: Once at 10 p.m. and once at midnight, with fireworks igniting each time from the top of the parking garage behind Whiskey Row.

The earlier drop coincides with the traditional ball drop in New York City’s Times Square.

In eastern Arizona, an illuminated two of clubs playing card will be dropped in honor of Show Low’s history, in which two ranchers settled a land dispute during a marathon poker game.

The city of Flagstaff was set to drop a unique item of its own — a pine cone — from the historic Weatherford Hotel downtown but the event was canceled due to the recent rising spread of the omicron COVID-19 variant.

However, people can watch previous pine cone drops and the Flagstaff Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Auld Lang Syne online to celebrate the new year from home.

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