The Wacky Stuff We Drop on New Year’s Eve

From drag queens to giant pinecones.

This piece is reprinted from Travel + Leisure

Eastport, Maine

A big red plywood maple leaf honoring nearby Canada is released at 11 p.m. and an 8-foot sardine (paying homage to the local industry) at midnight. Tides Institute & Museum of Art; tidesinstitute.org.

Photograph by Leslie Bowman.
Bethlehem, Pa.

Home to the headquarters of the ubiquitous bird-shaped Easter marshmallow candy, Bethlehem ceremoniously lowers a yellow, lighted, 85-pound fiberglass resin Peep at 5:15 p.m. and midnight. SteelStacks; artsquest.org.

Photograph courtesy of ArtsQuest.
Raleigh, N.C.

A 1,250-pound steel-and-copper acorn is dropped at 7 p.m. (for the kids) and midnight. City Plaza; firstnightraleigh.com.

Photograph by Jeffrey L. Cohen.
Atlanta

The largest New Year’s party in the Southeast features the fall of an 800-pound fiberglass-and-foam peach. Underground Atlanta; peachdrop.com.

Photograph by St. John Photographics.
Vincennes, Ind.

Known for its multimillion-dollar melon industry, Indiana raises an 18-foot, 500-pound watermelon into the sky, which then opens to release 12 real Knox County watermelons. (Don’t worry, there’s a splash zone below.) Riverfront Pavilion; vincennescvb.org.

Photograph by Juli Vieke-Peach.
Flagstaff, Ariz.

At 10 p.m. and midnight, the city lowers a 6-foot pinecone. Why? Flagstaff lies on the edge of the world’s largest contiguous ponderosa forest. Hotel Weatherford; weatherfordhotel.com.

Photograph by Leslie Connell.
Plymouth, Wis.

This town drops an 80-pound wedge of BellaVitano Gold cheese; alas, it’s made of Styrofoam. Plymouth Arts Center; plymoutharts.org.

Photograph by Richard Fellenz.
Elizabethtown, Pa.

Elizabethtown lowers a giant M&M at the rather unexpected time of 7 p.m.—so that it can correspond with its Irish sister city, Letterkenny. elizabethtowncoc.com.

Photograph by Jamie Schoenberger, Epic Photography.
Niagara Falls, N.Y.

An illuminated 10-foot Gibson guitar is dropped every year at the Hard Rock Cafe, drawing crowds averaging 15,000 to 20,000 annually. Hard Rock Cafe Niagara Falls, 333 Prospect St.
Photograph courtesy of CREDIT: Old Falls Street.
Key West, Fla.

The New Year kicks off here as flamboyantly as you’d expect. Key West’s now-famous festivities include dropping a drag queen named Sushi in a giant ruby red slipper. Bourbon Street Pub/New Orleans House complex, 724 Duval St.

Photograph by Andy Newman, Florida Keys News Bureau.
Lebanon, Pa.

Weighing more than 100 pounds, the giant bologna that is dropped in this Pennsylvania city brings crowds from all over. The meat is later donated to local shelters. 9th and Cumberland Streets; lebanonpa.com/events.

See the full gallery of wacky ball drops here.

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Photograph courtesy of Community of Lebanon Association.

Not everyone will be toasting 2012 with champagne. In Bartlesville, Okla., the biggest drink is, literally, a martini: Locals drop a massive olive into a glass from the top of a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed skyscraper.

New Year’s Eve is ultimately about the countdown, and it’s made official when something drops at midnight. Across America, places like Bartlesville have gotten creative. Some wacky drops pay tribute to local products or tastes, while others just go all-out outrageous. Whether you’re braving the crowds or watching in a hotel room, cheering a drop is part of the year-end spectacle—before the hangover and resolutions kick in.

The ball drop tradition dates back only to the early 1900s, when New York Times owner Alfred Ochs, whose offices were in Times Square, convinced the city to let him throw a grand party. The first 400-pound iron and wood orb featured 100 bulbs and was lowered down a flagpole. Now it’s an 11,875-pound, 12-foot geodesic globe encrusted with 2,688 Waterford crystals.

Roughly 1 million people flock to see that Times Square ball in person, and millions more tune in around the world. There’s a shared quality to the scenes of fireworks, noisemakers, and partygoers in public squares and crowded bars that flash across TV screens as time zone after time zone counts down. But which object gets dropped is very much a local choice.

Take Key West, Fla., which may not have Waterford crystals, but makes its own flamboyant New Year’s statement. For more than a decade, locals have cheered outside a bar on Duval Street as a ruby red high-heeled shoe—with a drag queen named Sushi seated inside—is lowered from the balcony.

There are actual food drops, too, that offer a visual bite of local delicacies. Atlanta, for instance, releases an 800-pound fiberglass-and-foam peach. Known for its multimillion-dollar melon industry, Vincennes, Ind., raises an 18-foot watermelon into the sky, which then opens to release 12 real Knox County watermelons.

Read on for our complete list of wacky New Year’s drops—worth celebrating no matter where you ring in 2012.