Happy Southern New Year 2018!

New Year’s in the South means fun and unique — sometimes weird — happenings. Here are a few to consider:

Mount Olive Pickle's New Year's Eve Pickle Drop

Watch a pickle fall from the sky in Mt. Olive, North Carolina, at the annual Pickle Drop. At 7 p.m. Eastern Time (midnight Greenwich Mean Time), the New Year’s Eve three-foot lighted pickle comes down the flagpole into a redwood pickle tank while thousands celebrate. Naturally, there’s music, refreshments and more. 

Razorbacks and MoonPies

Other weird New Year’s Eve drops include the MoonPie falling 34 stories from the top of the RSA Bank Trust Tower in downtown Mobile for the Mobile New Year, and the Late Night Fayetteville celebration, which includes the Hog Drop in addition to live music, family fun, Sacred Somatics performers and much more. If you're wondering why a MoonPie, the southern Alabama town throws the Chattanooga-based sweet treat at Mardi Gras. As for the hog, Fayetteville is home to the University of Arkansas Razorbacks.

Rat Pack New Year’s Bash

Ring in the New Year at Messina Hof Winery in the Hill Country of Texas with the winery’s Texas Sparkling wine, music and contest for best dancer at the Rat Pack New Year's Bash. Dress in your best vintage outfit and bring your dancing shoes. General admission is $30 and you can stay at the Messina Hof's Manor Haus Bed & Breakfast. 

Jack and Music

New Year’s Eve in Music City means music at the Jack Daniel's Music City Midnight event. Look for the likes of Keith Urban, Maren Morris, Cheap Trick, Carly Pearce, Jonny P, Larkin Poe, and the Fisk Jubilee Singers in Nashville this New Year’s Eve, along with the midnight Music Note Drop and fireworks outside the State Capitol building. Need more convincing? Watch Keith Urban urge you to visit.

Courtesy of http://www.visitmusiccity.com/

Weird, Wacky and Wild South is written by travel writer Chere Coen who loves a strange and unique Southern place or tradition. 

For a child happiness once came in a small metal box — the Lunchbox Museum of Columbus, Georgia

Who can forget those metal containers we hauled off to school, each containing something scrumptious — we hoped, at least — inside? And no matter that it was our lunch we were bringing, filled with nutrients to get us through the school day, it was the outside of those boxes that mattered most.

Those metal lunchboxes are a thing of the past, surpassed by plastic, then soft, safer materials. After all, swinging a metal lunchbox at the schoolyard bully could result in a broken nose and a suspension.

Still, don’t you miss them?

You can relieve your childhood memories at the Lunchbox Museum in Columbus, Georgia, where Allen Woodall has assembled on display around 1,000 lunchboxes of all shapes and sizes and each sporting popular culture icons, among other artwork. There’s the 1935 Mickey Mouse lunchbox, Marvel superheroes, TV shows like Charlie Angels, Scooby Doo and Laugh-In and so much more! 

Nancy Giles (one of my favorite on-air reporters) recently spotlighted the museum on CBS Sunday Morning and explains how the fad began in the 1950s and continued until 1985 when Rambo sealed its fate after some Florida moms felt the metal boxes were weapons of destruction during kid fights.

Click here for the Sunday Morning video.

The Lunchbox Museum, featuring the largest collection of lunchboxes in the world, is located inside the Rivermarket Antique Mall in Columbus.

Check out more photos (courtesy of Visit Columbus) below.

Weird South is written by travel and food writer Chere Dastugue Coen who always loves a weird and unusual place.