Fayetteville, AR

In the home of the Razorbacks, the hog drop (seen in the pictures here) was the traditional midnight countdown for several years. This year, with the debut Last Night Fayetteville event, there’s a new hog in town: a locally sculpted winged hog with an 8.5-foot wingspan will welcome 2012 as it’s dropped from the top of a fire truck ladder. Fayetteville Square; lastnightfayetteville.com. —Lyndsey Matthews