Bubbles, confetti and music help kids ring in 2023 in Naperville

As 4-year-old Evie and 2-year-old Max Hargrave put the ending touches on their confetti cannons Saturday on the DuPage Youngsters’s Museum, their mother reminded them of the approaching New Yr’s celebration.

“The countdown is at midday. The stress is on!” Esther Hargrave stated, as a volunteer helped her children tape cone-shaped items of building paper and fill them with confetti.

Upstairs a couple of minutes later, the siblings, from Clarendon Hills, pulled the strings on their “cannons,” capturing out confetti to mark “Midday Yr’s Eve” ― a celebration for kids (and their drained dad and mom) who have been unlikely to make it to midnight.

About 1,000 folks attended the sold-out Bubble Bash on the Naperville museum, ringing in 2023 ― albeit 12 hours early — with arts and crafts, dwell music and refreshments. It was the primary yr the annual occasion was held as an in-person occasion because the pandemic.

“We’re actually excited to have folks again within the museum to rejoice New Yr’s Eve,” public relations supervisor Shamra Fallon stated. “ New Yr’s decision is to return out and go to us and apply STEM and broaden your thoughts and make 2023 the very best it may be.”

Across the museum, children made wearable artwork, used mallets to launch frozen arctic animals within the “snowy” sensory space, constructed rocket launchers out of rubber bands and popsicle sticks, and constructed s’mores-esque “munchie mosaics.”

Main as much as the countdown, Sofia Diaz, 4, of Berwyn, and her 3-year-old brother, Liam, munched on their mosaics within the museum’s basement. Liam’s graham cracker was stacked with M&Ms and Goldfish crackers atop a layer of frosting.

Requested what she favored most in regards to the occasion, Sofia replied: “The artwork and the bubbles.”

As for which countdown she deliberate to attend, the reply was apparent: “Bubbles!”

The households had their selection of 4 stations to ring within the new yr, the choices being confetti, bubbles, dwell music or quiet countdowns.

Because the 12 o’clock hour approached, Fallon led the countdown: “Ten, 9, eight …” At midday, employees shot confetti out of leaf blowers as kids jubilantly pulled their confetti poppers. Down the corridor, a museum worker waved a large bubble wand as machines rained bubbles from the ceiling. Youngsters cheered and reveled within the celebration as their dad and mom took footage with their cellphone cameras.

“That is our first time celebrating ‘Midday Yr’s Eve’ and our first time on the museum,” stated Ashley Russell, of Clarendon Hills, who attended along with her children, Olson, 5, and Emily, 3. “It was a very good expertise.”

Not lengthy after, employees and volunteers began sweeping up the confetti and handing out neon plastic rakes for kids to assist out. It was again to the grind; the “midday yr” was right here.

“You make the mess — we clear it up. After we do the confetti poppers, it’s not in your front room,” Fallon stated. “And hopefully we exhausted all people so everybody’s not really up till midnight.”

Giles Bruce is a contract reporter for the Naperville Solar.