TALLAPOOSA, Ga. — One Georgia city is set to ring in 2022 with a bang.
Atlanta's Peach Drop may be canceled, but Tallapoosa is still celebrating New Year's Eve with a Possum Drop instead.
"No Peaches, just Possums on NYE," the city wrote in a Facebook post.
The west Georgia community is self described as "small town with southern charm." The Possum drop is considered a New Year's Eve tradition in The Dogwood City.
According to The Possum Drop Facebook page, the Haralson County city was formerly known as "Possum Snout," after a local Native American chief. Now, residents in the area come together annual to commemorate the start of a new year by lowering a stuffed opossum named "Spencer" from a top one of the city's oldest buildings. It's a tribute to Tallapoosa's former namesake.
The city did not indicate why they decided to spell the word opossum without the "O."
"Its an evening filled with music, fireworks and fun activities for your entire family," the Facebook page states.
The city emphasizes that no live opossums are used in this celebration, nor have they ever been used in any previous ones. Spencer is, however, an opossum that has been preserved via taxidermy, and named after Ralph L. Spencer — the man credited for the city's 19th century boom, according the event webpage.
Event organizers said Spencer the opossum was found dead in a roadway by a local taxidermist years before the first Possum Drop in the 1990s.
This year's Possum Drop is being held Friday, Dec. 31 from 7 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. in Tallapoosa. If you can't make it in person, organizers are planning to live stream the event, too. You can watch it online with this link.