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Show City of New Orleans Likes Its Fireworks In Christmas Season Christmas without firecrackers just isn't Christmas down in New Orleans. "If anybody not got no fire wo' k he mighty po'," say the Creoles gay-ly. gay-ly. The more the fireworks, the better the Christmas on the lower side of Canal street. While other people are shooting off fireworks on July 4, New Orleans Or-leans is swelter- - tag under intense heat. Outside activities ac-tivities are out of the question. With noisy July 4 festivities out of the question, it was easy to be- ' ii 1 mm gin celebrating Christmas, instead, with the firing of skyrockets, Roman candles and firecrackers. Once started, start-ed, there was no stopping it. Shooting starts several weeks before be-fore Christmas, and every night the tumult increases. Parents consistently consist-ently caution their children to save the firecrackers until the twenty-fifth, twenty-fifth, because they won't get any more. . The boys and' girls refuse to believe this prophecy, but feel that Providence will not allow them to go crackerless. ! !Ev.en the almost penniless have firecrackers, but .the more wealthy win the envy of others with' their rockets. ' Enthusiasm is I not limited to the young boys, but it I is shared by the entire family. Boys j and girls parade up and down the streets at night, making a racket with tin trumpets and "instruments" they picked up on the way. They ring doorbells, then run away with joyful laughter. The sky is lighted up with rockets and firecrackers beat a constant staccato. The fun begins again the next morning, with greater enthusiasm than ever. Although a boy may have bankrupted himself the day before, firecrackers have taken a great drop in price. He must have a new supply because they are cheap. Now the juveniles grow reckless. Whole packages of firecrackers go off at one fell blow; those who were firecracker boys yesterday are skyrocket boys today. As night comes on, the streets seem ablaze with ex- Bllllll plosives and colored rockets. The second morning after Christmas Christ-mas the streets are strewn thick with buried pieces of fireworks; but the air is clear. The acrid odor of fireworks is again replaced by the perfume of Christmas roses. |