New Year's Booms

Joe I think we mentioned previously that New Year's is one of the big three annual fireworks days here in Sweden. New Year's is unlike either the first Sunday in Advent, when Uppsala has a large municipal fireworks show, or Walpurgis Night, when large neighborhood associations all over town have medium-sized displays. Swedes, or at least Uppsalabo, ring in the new year with a barrage of individual displays. There's generally a light peppering one or two nights beforehand, then on the day itself we'll hear increasingly frequent booms in the distance. But when midnight hits, suddenly there are fireworks going off everywhere.

Living right on the edge of town as we do, it's a pretty impressive display even from our balcony. This year, though, the night was cold and clear, and there was no snow on the ground, so it seemed like a good time to check out the nearest little gathering up close (we've previously seen evidence that the local football field sees pretty heavy use as a launching pad, we've just never gone over there as it was happening).

Video of the proceedings is above. The cluster of lights in the lower left hand corner is the local neighborhood children, who marched up to the field bearing torches just five minutes before the stroke of twelve. The foreground is the (semi-official?) neighborhood display at first, with some random locals joining in as it progresses. In the background there were at least half a dozen other displays going at the same time (you can see bigger stuff from at least two other locales in Norby in the video, plus a few small items from the farmhouse down the road). The best part is the unintentional ground display that starts at about 20 seconds in — don't worry, no one was injured!