Towns across North Carolina are gearing up for their New Year’s Eve celebrations, which will feature some idiosyncratic items dropping in place of the typical lighted ball.
In Raleigh, they’re getting ready to drop the city’s 10-foot-tall giant acorn at midnight. In Mt. Olive, south of Goldsboro, the town plans to lower their glowing New Year’s Eve pickle into a pickle jar, while Eastover, outside of Fayetteville, marks the new year by dropping their giant flea sculpture. Marion celebrates with a gold nugget sculpture dropping into a pot of gold, and Vance County is lowering a steel catfish sculpture into Kerr Lake.
In Charlotte, the city’s New Year’s Eve celebration includes midnight fireworks. It’s being held at the Charlotte Knights’ uptown stadium for the first time, after last year’s event was marred by a shooting that injured five people.