Why Do We Set Off Fireworks at Halloween?

I don’t need to tell you that the Halloween season is upon us: the signs are everywhere. You’ve brushed the real cobwebs off your box of decorative cobwebs, “Monster Mash” is on repeat at your spin class and restaurants are serving up festive seasonal feature dishes of spaghetti and peeled grapes. But for me, it never feels quite like Halloween until

I’ve filed into an elementary school library to watch a nightmare-inducing firecracker safety video.

I grew up associating Halloween with fireworks and firecrackers. Every year, I’d put on my Belle from Beauty and the Beast dress overtop of my raincoat (like a lady) and head out into the night with my pillowcase. I knew speed was of the essence—not just to maximize candy-hours and beat my neighbour Melissa, who was also dressed as Belle, of course, but also to avoid the teens who were lurking outside with their Roman candles and Lady Fingers, waiting for nightfall. The shrieks and pops of juvenile explosives rang through the neighbourhood until the wee hours, becoming as much of a soundtrack to the holiday as Rockwell’s D-list Halloween hymn, “Somebody’s Watching Me.”

So I was shocked to discover a few years ago that this phenomenon is purely regional: firecrackers and Halloween are a “thing” in B.C., and B.C. only. Not in Calgary, not in Toronto, not even in the town in Nightmare Before Christmas (a.k.a “the big three”). It’s like when I went to the doctor and it dawned on me for the first time that it’s pronounced “pap smear” not “pap schmear”—suddenly the world shifts and you