The wild things America drops on New Year's Eve, from pickles to Peeps
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Peep a peep on New Year's Eve; it's time for 2023 to leave. Photo by ArtsQuest™/courtesy DiscoverLehighValley.com
You know about the ball drop in New York. But Americans in towns big and small have taken the idea of lowering things on New Year's Eve and made them local.
- And sometimes they're very strange.
Why it matters: It's the last minute of the year. Who are you spending it with, and what are you watching fall? A twinkly ball on your television? Or something local and handcrafted, like, say, roadkill?
Driving the news: Miami's iconic New Year's sculpture, the Big Orange, is back this year after much debate over a logistical issue, Axios' Martin Vassolo recently reported.
- Meanwhile, Atlanta punted on the idea of dropping a foam and fiberglass peach in the city's downtown.
State of play: Here are a few of the most, um, interesting current and recent traditions from around the United States, from our teams across Axios.
- Of note: It's not meant to be a comprehensive list, but please let us know if we missed a notable one.
Peeps chick: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
It's 4 feet 9, 400 pounds, and straight out of your childhood dreams. Bethlehem is home of the classic marshmallow treat, and people here take it seriously: They drop the Peep twice, on Dec. 30 and 31, at 5:30pm each day.
- Other Pennsylvania things: This state is wild. The town of Strasburg drops 275 ping pong balls from a three-story building, Pottsville raises a Yuengling bottle, and Allentown drops a 1,000-pound hockey puck.
Acorn: Raleigh, NC
For three decades, Raleigh has lived up to its "City of Oaks" moniker by dropping a giant acorn at the start of the New Year, Axios Raleigh's Zachery Eanes and Lucille Sherman write.
- It started as a marketing attempt to give fast-growing Raleigh a symbol, but it's since grown into a cherished tradition that draws thousands of people downtown.
Pickle: Mount Olive, NC
Eastern North Carolina's well-known local cucumber-transforming operation, Mt. Olive Pickles, started the tradition in 1999 when eight people dropped a pickle on a rope into a brine tank at 7pm.
- In the coming years, they realized that 7pm in Mount Olive is actually midnight in Greenwich Mean Time, so they kept it.
- Over time they've added a marquee and lights to the pickle, and moved it to the campus of the University of Mount Olive, but each year the countdown begins at 6pm and ends with the drop at, as the pickle company puts it, "7pm midnight."
MoonPie: Mobile, Alabama
In Mobile, Alabama, the NYE celebration includes a MoonPie drop, Axios New Orleans' Chelsea Brasted writes.
- MoonPies, which are made in Chattanooga, Tennessee, have been synonymous with Mobile's annual Mardi Gras celebrations since the 1950s, so the town started dropping a 12-foot electric treat about a decade ago.
Bye, king cake baby. Hello, fleur de lis: New Orleans
New Orleans dropped a nearly naked king cake baby for years, but the so-called "Baby New Year" was sadly retired after New Year's Eve 2015, Axios New Orleans' Carlie Wells writes.
- The oversized Carnival prop is now on display at the Southern Food and Beverage Museum.
- Organizers replaced the baby with a giant fleur de lis.
Red stick: Baton Rouge, La.
The French words "Baton Rouge" translate directly to "red stick," so Louisiana's capital drops — you guessed it — a bedazzled red stick in the middle of its downtown, Chelsea writes.
- The truly inspired nomenclature in Louisiana's capital goes back centuries. The city gets its name from another red stick seen by a French explorer. It was stuck in the muddy Mississippi River waters to delineate the territories of two indigenous tribes.
Walleye: Port Clinton, Ohio
His name is Wylie. He's 600 pounds and would put up a helluva fight if you ran into him on Lake Eerie. But he's made of fiberglass, not fins, and he's been helping people in this lakefront town of about 6,000 celebrate for more than a quarter-century.
Crab pot: Cape Charles, Virginia
🦀 Never to be excluded, Virginians in Cape Charles, Colonial Beach and Hampton drop massive, lighted crab pots from the sky.
- Meanwhile Chincoteague, famous for its wild ponies, drops a giant, bedazzled horseshoe, Axios Richmond's Karri Peifer writes.
Crab: Easton, Maryland
Since 2005, this jewel box of a town on Maryland's eastern shore has dropped an eight-foot version of state's most marketed delicacy.
Orange: Miami (back on this year)
Miami's 2,000-pound, 35-foot-tall, sunglasses-wearing Orange actually rises. For 30 years it made a 400-foot ascent up the InterContinental Hotel before a COVID-19 pause.
- It nearly got canceled again this year because the hotel will be stuffed with players from the University of Georgia and Florida State ahead of their Dec. 30 bowl game.
- But they figured it out, and the show goes on, Martin writes.
Peach: Atlanta (off this year)
Starting in 1989, Atlanta's dropped an 800-pound fiberglass and foam peach at Underground, a downtown shopping center turned events and artists' complex, Axios Atlanta's Thomas Wheatley writes.
- For the 25th anniversary in 2013, the event threw the world a curveball by incorporating a giant yellow M&M into the ceremony (it was part of a marketing campaign).
- The peach takes roughly one minute to descend down the 138-foot tower, according to a 2019 WSB story.
- Of note: The Peach Drop has been an on-again, off-again event over the past few years, due mostly to COVID-19. It is off again this year, according to the AJC.
Opossum: Tallapoosa, Ga. and Brasstown, NC (retired)
The owners of Clay's Corner convenience store in far western North Carolina lowered various versions of opossums for nearly 25 years. Clay and Judy Logan started the tradition with a ceramic opossum in 1990 to give the people of Brasstown something to do, according to numerous accounts. The next year they used a live opossum.
- PETA spent years trying to shut it down — Clay used roadkill in 2004 in response. The Logans retired in 2018 and the tradition moved to nearby Andrews, but only lasted a year before ending after the 2019 Possum Drop.
Meanwhile, Tallapoosa in Western Georgia continues with its opossum drop — but they say they've never used a live one, says Axios' Emma Hurt.
- The event celebrates Tallapoosa's heritage and one of it's earliest names: Possum Snout.
- The taxidermied possum, named "Spencer" was "found deceased in a roadway by local Taxidermist Bud Jones many years before the event began in the mid-1990s."
- When the Peach Drop took a hiatus in Atlanta in 2017, Tallapoosa claims it became the largest New Year's Eve celebration in Georgia.
