Downtown Mobile drew thousands of revelers on New Year’s Eve as the city marked both the start of a new year and the beginning of a new decade with its signature MoonPie Drop celebration. Crowds gathered along the streets and rooftops of downtown to watch the giant illuminated MoonPie, built in Chattanooga, Tennessee, descend from the side of a downtown building at the stroke of midnight, a local twist on the traditional New Year’s Eve ball drop that has become one of the region’s most recognizable holiday traditions.
This year’s celebration featured a live performance from Collective Soul, the Georgia-based rock band best known for 1990s hits such as “Shine” and “The World I Know.” The band took the stage for the assembled crowd before the countdown, giving the celebration a nostalgic soundtrack as 2019 turned to 2020. Before the show, members of the band were spotted dining at Roosters, a longtime downtown restaurant known for its Latin-inspired menu.
Not everyone experienced a peaceful transition into the new year, however. Residents across Mobile reported hearing what sounded like automatic gunfire ringing out around midnight, a recurring complaint during New Year’s Eve celebrations in the city. One Oakleigh neighborhood resident discovered a bullet lodged in his front porch in the days following the celebration, a reminder of the real dangers posed by celebratory gunfire.
Discharging firearms into the air to celebrate the new year is illegal in Mobile and across Alabama, and public safety officials routinely warn that bullets fired into the sky must eventually come down, often with lethal consequences. A woman in Houston was killed by a stray bullet on New Year’s Eve this year, an incident that underscores the danger of the practice even when celebratory in intent. Local officials have urged residents in past years to celebrate responsibly and to leave the fireworks and noisemakers to sanctioned displays rather than gunfire.
Carnival season also got an early start in Mobile this year. What organizers billed as the “world’s longest Mardi Gras parade” rolled through the streets of downtown Mobile on Saturday, Jan. 4, in celebration of the LendingTree Bowl college football game. Several of Mobile’s Mardi Gras mystic societies contributed floats to the parade, which stretched on for an unusually long route and drew fans of both competing football teams out to the parade route alongside regular Carnival season attendees.
Not everything thrown from the floats met with approval. Several parade riders were seen tossing a generic marshmallow treat rather than an official MoonPie, prompting grumbling among parade-goers who expect the real thing during Mobile’s Carnival festivities. Locals hope the substitution will not carry over into the official Mardi Gras parades still to come this season.
While the LendingTree Bowl parade offered an early taste of Carnival, Mardi Gras season did not officially begin until Sunday, Jan. 5 — Twelfth Night, also known as the eve of the Epiphany. The date marks the traditional start of the Carnival season in Mobile, when it becomes customary to begin enjoying king cake ahead of Fat Tuesday. Two of the city’s mystic societies marked the occasion with private celebrations at Cotton Hall and Crown Hall, located near one another downtown. Details of the invitation-only gatherings remained closely guarded, though both are known for elaborate costumes, masks and revelry befitting the start of Mobile’s Carnival season, one of the oldest in the nation.
With the MoonPie Drop complete and Twelfth Night festivities behind them, Mobile now turns its attention to the weeks of parades, balls and king cake ahead as the city’s Mardi Gras season builds toward its climax.