Why PA Towns Ring In The New Year With Pickles, Pucks & Potatoes

By Emily Previti | Pennsylvania Capital-Star

New Year’s Eve events across Pennsylvania have gained a reputation for the unique, bizarre and creative objects raised or dropped as part of the celebration. Many are tied to host communities’ identities  – through connections to business, industry, traditions or the name of their town. 

One community in Montgomery County has plans to join in the festivities this New Year’s Eve by marking the holiday with an inaugural hat drop, a nod to the profession of one of the borough’s founding residents. 

A  6-feet-tall, 200-pound metal top hat strewn with white lights will descend from a fire ladder in Hatboro at 6 p.m. tonight as part of a family-friendly fete, according to borough manager Diane Hegele. 

“We saw the PEEP drop and the Hershey’s kiss drop and thought it would be neat to do a hat drop,” Hegele said. “Our fire marshal happened to be out doing an inspection at Royson Engineering and happened to see they had a laser printer and asked if they’d be interested in making a hat. And they did. They did a phenomenal job.”

Here are some highlights of the dozens of similar celebrations in the commonwealth’s cities, boroughs and townships:

In Perry County, Duncannon will revive its sled drop today after skipping last year. Wilkes-Barre Township, Luzerne County, will bring back its blueberry after three years – a locally crafted five-feet-diameter glowing aluminum orb draped in blue, according to its fire department. And after a near-miss, a wrench will again descend in Mechanicsburg, Cumberland County – thanks to volunteers stepping in to help as the longtime organizer recovers from surgery, as PennLive reported. 

Other changes to the lineup include Red Lion in York County and Chambersburg in Franklin County foregoing their traditions for 2025.

Red Lion’s Municipal Utility Authority employees had volunteered in past years to scramble up to the roof to raise a cigar in honor of the industry’s legacy in the borough; however, liability concerns arose with fewer people available for that this year, according to board member Nevin Horne.

Developer Jordan Ilyes hopes to integrate the totem into a celebration at one of his properties. His Franklin Street Social, Horne noted, offers a quieter section of the borough that would be safer for spectators and less disruptive to traffic than the intersection of Route 24 and Main Street for past cigar-raising ceremonies.

It’s also unclear whether the Martin’s potato chip drop bag could be restarted in Chambersburg in the future. However, chips will fall more than 100 miles away in Lewistown, Mifflin County, in honor of the Hartley’s variety produced locally after skipping several years.

Pottsville will raise a giant replica of a bottle of Yuengling lager, the well-known brewery has confirmed.

In Allentown, a 20-feet-wide hockey puck drops at the PPL Center – home of event sponsor the Lehigh Valley Phantoms American Hockey League team. 

A mammoth PEEPS chick descends as part of an entire festival based around the sugar-dusted Easter confection produced in Bethlehem. And a 300-pound aluminum kiss is dropped in Hershey — home to the world famous chocolate-maker the Hershey Company.

There’s also a pickle in Dillsburg York County, a huckleberry in New Bloomfield, Perry County, and bologna in Lebanon – a 28-year tradition that’s previously sparked requests from animal rights advocates to celebrate with a vegan version. 

Shippensburg has dropped an anchor for nearly as long – even though the borough (which extends into both Cumberland and Franklin counties) derives its name from a founding resident and not from any strong maritime ties. 

Several communities will continue their long-standing traditions of dropping locally significant emblems. 

In Northumberland County, Shamokin has – for at least a decade, according to city manager Robert Slaby – been lowering a giant, glittering piece of coal for the industry that looms so large in the region’s history and its identity, even if it may be well past its heyday. Sunbury drops an oversized version of a lightbulb – a reference to the city’s streets being the first illuminated by overhead conductors. 

The Haines shoe house replica dropped in Hellam Township pays homage to the York County municipality’s singular promotional structure turned Airbnb rental.

The cities of York and Lancaster have been celebrating with white and red roses, respectively, for years – in honor of their nicknames. 

It’s the 13th annual mushroom drop in Kennett Square, the Chester County community known as the “mushroom capital of the world.”

Harrisburg’s strawberry drop dates back to 1991. 

And just down the Susquehanna River from the capital city, the York County community of Goldsboro will again drop a nuclear ball opposite Three Mile Island – site of the nation’s worst nuclear disaster more than 40 years ago and scheduled to reopen in 2027 to power Microsoft data centers.

Pennsylvania Capital-Star is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Tim Lambert for questions: info@penncapital-star.com.