Rawhide hosting New Year’s Eve celebrations

Rawhide is bringing some special New Year’s Eve celebrations to the Maricopa area. Whether you are celebrating as a family or a couple, there is an event planned just for you.

Bring in the New Year western style at the Rawhide Steakhouse and Saloon. You can enjoy the special New Year’s package offered exclusively in Rawhide’s Steakhouse. Prepay for a special menu dinner, champagne toast, party favors and entertainment. Special door prizes, drawings, and a balloon drop at midnight are also included in the Steakhouse package. If you prefer Rawhide’s regular menu, you can make reservations in the Sunset Room and enjoy country music and party favors.

Families can also ring in 2006, western style. Hay wagons will greet your group at 9 p.m. and take you to Rawhide’s Desert Party. The complete package includes party favors, hot chocolate, coffee and lemonade, a live band and entertainment, plus a marshmallow roast. Special picnic foods and warming adult beverages will also be available for purchase. For reservation information, call (480) 502-5600.

From now through New Year’s Day Rawhide’s Cowboy Christmas will be on display, featuring 150,000 lights on Main Street, a 100-foot tall “tree of lights” and nightly lighting ceremony. You can experience snow falling gently through town, toast a marshmallow at a warm town fire, listen to the sounds of live holiday music and enjoy a special holiday Six Gun Theater Show. Daily admission is free.

Rawhide’s wild west theme park was relocated to Gila River Indian Community land at Wild Horse Pass, just north of Maricopa, in November. A Scottsdale fixture since 1971, the western town closed there on Halloween night. The Gila River Indian Community purchased the theme park for an undisclosed sum in March 2005.