23 Bizarre Things Ceremonially Dropped on New Year’s Eve
1. A giant Peep in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Peeps’ parent company, Just Born, calls the eastern Pennsylvania town home. Though Peeps come in shapes to suit every holiday these days, the drop is done with a traditional chick that flashes different colors at midnight. 2. A three-foot tall, thirty-pound wooden flea in Eastover, North Carolina. Yeah, it’s a real head scratcher, unless you know that the town was called Flea Hill until the 1920s. I don’t know about you, but I think I’d let that nickname die.3. A 350-pound electronic Moon Pie in Mobile, Alabama.
Why a Moon Pie? According to PR Newswire, the tasty snack cake is the “favored throw” at the Mardi Gras parade (never mind that whole bead thing), which originated in Mobile. Call me crazy, but I think they need to switch to a real 350-pound Moon Pie. 4. A real (dead) carp in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. Most carp don’t see 15 seconds of fame, let alone 15 minutes. But every year in Prairie du Chien, Lucky the Carp is the center of attention when he’s lowered onto a throne to celebrate the new year. It’s the culmination of a week of activities, which includes events such as hanging carp ornaments on a pine tree, the Carp Plunge (like a polar bear plunge) and busting open a carp piñata. As far as we know, the piñata contains candy, not carp.