Popcorn Ball Drop 2025

December 2025 marks my fourth year of involvement with the Chagrin Falls New Year's Eve Popcorn Ball Drop. This is the first year that Will was not with me, so I felt like I was missing an arm during the drop. That being said, the team was a well-oiled machine and the drop was fantastic.

Before talking about this year's drop, it might be worthwhile giving an overview of the Chagrin Falls downtown area. Bill Watterson provides a remarkably accurate sketch of our downtown on the back cover of The Essential Calvin and Hobbes - A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury.

Chagrin Falls' Village Triangle. (Most towns have squares, we have a triangle.)

Relevant landmarks in Watterson's drawing are:

• Calvin is holding the Chagrin Falls Popcorn shop which is a village landmark. In real life it's about where Calvin's right heel is. The Popcorn Shop puts the "popcorn" in the the Chagrin Falls Popcorn Ball drop. (Fun fact for my Chesapeake High School chums: Hugh and Andy Morrison's grandpa used to own the Popcorn Shop.)
• The flagpole with the American flag in the town triangle is the flagpole where we hoist the popcorn ball.
• The gazebo ("bandstand" some say) with the brown roof in the triangle is visible in some of my street photos and is the site of our snowy group team photo.
• North Franklin Street (the foreground and scene of snow frolicking in subsequent photos) is the street on the left of the drawing, the one with the white car near the overturned red-ish car.

The year of the 2025 Popcorn Ball proceeded according to the usual sequence of events:

1. Repair the ball.
2. Apply a new coat of popcorn to the ball, which we refer to as "Mushing and Smushing."
3. Move the ball from storage to the Chagrin Falls Popcorn Shop (CFPS).
4. Rig the village flagpole top hoist with help from the Chagrin Falls Fire Department.
5. Move the ball from CFPS to the flagpole and hoist on 28 Dec
6. Drop the ball on 31 Dec.

Repairing the Ball: The year's efforts began in summer with us resurfacing the ball to remove moldy bits. This is the second (or third?) year we have done this and the surface of the ball has deviated from its spherical ideal. Summer 2026 will see us giving the ball a full resurfacing with attention to complete removal of spray foam and popcorn and returning the ball to its original shape. This will be a lot of work.

Removing mold with an angle grinder. A miserable job.

Applying a new coat of popcorn: A crack team of spray foam appliers smushed a new layer of popcorn onto the ball. We worked in Jim Newell's light industrial space and stored the balls there safely until it was time to move them to the CFPS.

Mushing and Smushing 2025

Moving the ball from storage to the Chagrin Falls Popcorn Shop (CFPS): I don't have any photos of the team, but here's a nice one of a CFPS employee and the artist who designed the poster for this year's drop standing in front of the popcorn ball after is was moved to the shop and dressed.

Popcorn Shop Employee (left) and poster artist (right) posing with this year's ball.

Rigging the village flagpole: Working with the Chagrin Falls Fire Department to rig the flag pole with our top hoist went well. Rob innovated a new attachment mechanism which made the rigging occur in record time. It helped that weather was relatively pleasant and not the arctic temperatures and howling winds of 2024.

The Chagrin Falls Fire Department rigged the village flag pole with our top hoist pulleys.

I like this photo because it gives a sense of height.

Moving the ball from CFPS to the flagpole and hoisting: Many hands made light work. We attached the ball to the pole, did some troubleshooting on rigging, and hauled the ball up in record time. In the photo below, the ball is about 40 feet above us.

A few members of the hoisting team: Scott, Rob, and Dewey.

Dropping the ball on 31 December: New Year's Eve was a day and night of heavy snow. We normally raise the ball on 28 Dec, but we delayed hoisting the ball to the top of the pole for a day because of high winds. You can see from the photo below that even though the "high winds" had passed, it was still pretty windy after we did the full hoist. The ball stayed solid and the lights stayed lit — it was a good year!

New Year's Eve was a blustery, snowy day and night.

The village had closed off North Franklin Street earlier in the day it is was filled with a lovely layer of clean powder. The photo above is shot across N.Franklin. The minivan in the photo below belongs to our fantastic DJ Buford T. Hedgehog. To give you an idea of how fast snow was falling, the minivan had been there for less than an hour.

The village triangle at about 10:30 PM. Looking across N. Franklin St.

The people below are frolicking in N.Franklin.

People played in the snow which was unusual to see, because snow is kind of a ho-hum thing here.

The snow kept falling throughout the event.

Rob and Jan pose in the snow on N. Franklin St. Where are the usual crowds?

At about 11:50 PM, the streets filled with people. The photo above and the photo below show N.Franklin St. from different angles and at different times. The photo above is obviously before the drop because the ball is still high on the flagpole and snow is falling. I think the photo below is just after we dropped the ball. The snow stopped at the stroke of midnight.

Ball dropped, job done.

Here is a photo I like of some of the crew at about 11:55 PM. It's a little abstract, but it's basically how the scene would look to you if you were there: you'd be squinting against the driving snow and a little bleary from the cold.

The Crew for The New Year's Eve Chagrin Falls Popcorn Ball Drop of 2025, minus those members who were hustling and doing things.

Here is a photo of me before the drop. 

It really was that snowy.

Even though Will was not around for this year's drop, he still managed to make an appearance courtesy of the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Scott and Will in the 12/26/2025 Cleveland Plain Dealer showing the Popcorn Ball Drop from last year.