New Year

I think the best way to describe the Great Mushroom Drop is to tell you that we spent the whole evening searching for two friends of ours. One is quite tall and is usually conspicuous in any crowd. And both of them were wearing red polka-dot mushroom hats, which you'd think would also have made them stand out.
Nope. We couldn't find them! Not only were there too many people in general, there were also too many people wearing mushroom headgear. Only in Kennett Square.
It was a fun evening, and I'm delighted I managed to stay awake. One of my favorite moments was my first glimpse of the huge, lit-up mushroom hanging from the crane at State and Union Streets. It was a magical sight against the dark sky.
It was below freezing, but I was well wrapped up and the cold didn't bother me at all. Maybe the heat from so many people warmed things up, or maybe it was the hot coffee from Fran Keller's and the Underground Donuts food truck.
After wandering around town saying "hi" to friends and visiting the open stores, at about 11 we staked out a spot in front of Talula's Table on State Street. Up until that point it had been a low-key evening, but over the next hour hordes of people descended on town and it got very crowded.
The people-watching was entertaining. One guy who wandered by wore a Santa Claus outfit, complete with beard. A group of stylish young men with Big Hair walked by, and one briefly tried to stand in front of me. Families brought their kids, some little ones asleep in strollers.
And at 11:59, the mushroom started its slow descent -- as the crowd counted down, it hit the street at the stroke of midnight.
I was hoping for a traditional chorus of "Auld Lang Syne," but instead the band launched into Lynyrd Skynyrd. Oh well.
Huge congrats to the folks who worked so hard to pull off this event! It really put Kennett on the map.