Meanwhile, In Brasstown, North Carolina...

...residents are fighting PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) over their customary New Year's Eve "Possum Drop."

For 20 years, the jubilant citizens of Brasstown have welcomed the new year by catching a wild opossum, placing it in a Plexiglass cage and slowly lowering it over a cheering crowd as fireworks explode in the night sky.

But in December, this mountain-town tradition caught the eye of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, who have since fought to stop Brasstown’s annual Opossum Drop for the sake of the tree-dwelling, nocturnal marsupials and animal lovers who cherish them.

“’Possums are very shy,” said Martina Bernstein, director of litigation for PETA. “They don’t run up to people. They run away. They have no way to hide. They are wild animals. You can’t explain to them that you just want to have fun.”

A reasonable alternative would be to get a professionally-mounted taxidermy possum (from a road-killed sample, say, so as not to get PETA's panties any more wadded up than they already are) to use in the Possum Drop. Such a mounted possum could be used year after year, and kept in a prominent place of honor on the other 364 days of the year. A taxidermist could pose such a possum in any of a number of imaginative poses, and the stuffed possum could even be posed in special clothing or accessory items. Think about the possibilities, here.