(RALEIGH) -- Raleigh drops an acorn. Mt. Olive dips a pickle. Several Tar Heel towns are known for their New Year celebration simply because they drop various things.

Eastover in Cumberland County drops a flea. A flea! Who would even know?

In western North Carolina an animal rights group wants to change the way one town rings in the New Year. PETA says the annual opossum drop in Brasstown is cruel and illegal. Opossum drop organizer Clay Logan says they don't actually "drop" the opossum.

"Actually we lower the opossum, that's just the name of the event: the opossum drop. But we lower him gently... we count him down like you do the ball, ten-nine-eight... right on down."

For the past 18 years, the town has lowered a possum in a transparent box at midnight. Organizers in this town of 250 say it's their version of dropping the ball in Times Square on New Year's Eve. They say the possum isn't hurt during the celebration. PETA visited Brasstown this week to try and put a stop to possum drop, but the party is going on as planned. Logan says PETA doesn't don't understand that the nature of the celebration.

"They came by here a week ago. they sent a lawyer out here and were going to file an injunction, but I told her I had a permit and decided not to file one at that time. They may change their mind [...] They're good folks, there isn't anything wrong with them, they just get misguided every now and then. Our event isn't cruel whatsoever."

Logan added that many people simply don't understand how the possum drop works.

"I explained to them what we do ... they didn't have a clue. They just think we stand up on a building 40 feet high and, at midnight, throw opossum's off, stuff like that." Logan says the possum is lowered from a height of about 18 feet, and set loose after everyone leaves the party.

And why an opossum? Logan says, why not.

"You can't have a redneck event saying 'the loweing of the opossum.' A nedneck event is the opossum 'drop.'"