WINSLOW — Staying up until midnight on New Year’s Eve to ring in the new year is a long-held tradition. But for some, staying up that late isn’t always easy.

So the Winslow Public Library celebrated the new year a little early Saturday with a “Noon Year’s Eve” party.

Samantha Cote, the youth services and technology librarian at the library on Halifax Street, said Noon Year’s Eve parties started at libraries as a way for families with younger kids to celebrate the new year.

Samantha Cote reads aloud during the early New Year’s celebration.

From 11 a.m. to noon, parents and children could come for arts and crafts, snacks and dancing. And just like when the clock strikes midnight, they all counted down the final 10 seconds until noon, at which point confetti rained down from the ceiling.

Close to 25 people turned out for the early celebration, including roughly a dozen or more children, ranging from toddlers to middle-school-age children. After hearing a story about New Year’s Eve, Cote then put on some music for the children to dance and rattle hand-built noisemakers to. The songs included the Pharell Williams’ hit “Happy,” and “Let It Go” from the Disney movie “Frozen” to close out 2016.

Hannah Delile, 9, center, and Caelyn Berube, 7, right, dance with other children  at the Winslow Public Library.

Winslow resident Ginny Brockway said her son goes to the library often, which is what brought them out Saturday. She praised the library for having good events and activities for children to do.

“We’re kind of new to it,” she said.

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