Why watch the lighted ball drop in Times Square for the New Year's countdown when you can see a pickle plummet? Or a huckleberry high-tail it?
At midnight, residents in Dillsburg will watch a 6-foot, papier-mache pickle drop 80 feet from the top of a ladder.Baked goods and pickle T-shirts will be sold at the Second Annual Pickle Drop to raise money for improvements to the south-central Pennsylvania community. It's named after settler Matthew Dill.
But residents will have to compete with the 4-foot papier-mache huckleberry drop from a courthouse tower in New Bloomfield.
The rare plant grows in a park just south of town, said Larry Smeigh, a member of the fire company that will do the honors.
In the first huckleberry drop last winter, large numbers of borough residents walked to the courthouse instead of driving to bars or parties, Smeigh said.
"I know those people that walked there weren't going to have an accident unless they fell on the ice on the way home," he said.
Need more variety? Ask about the white rose in York or the strawberry in Harrisburg.