Must-have Home Fireworks for Personal Holidays

Fireworks are fun — there is no denying it. Pretty much everyone enjoys the explosion of light and color that comes from a big fireworks display. However, those big fireworks displays typically only occur during national holidays, which means when you have a special day of your own, you can’t expect the giant, hour-long sky show you might see on Fourth of July or New Year’s Eve.

Fortunately, you can buy all manner of fireworks online, and as long as your local laws don’t prohibit the practice, you can produce your own fireworks event for friends and family. Here are some of the best fireworks to pick up for a fireworks show on a personal holiday:

Sparklers

Sparklers might last under a minute, but these simple and stunning pyrotechnics are easily among the most fun, especially for younger participants. Kids can’t be trusted with more robust fireworks, which could cause harm, but little ones as young as seven years can handle a sparkler without much concern about injury.

Even if you feel a bit too old to wave around a sparkler with glee, you might as well pick up a pack of sparklers for your holiday celebration. Sparklers make for exciting photo props, and they are also fantastic atop desserts or as a means of toasting a special accomplishment. Sparklers are just a simple, inexpensive firework that goes with every occasion, so it is best to always have some on hand.

Roman Candles

If your firework tastes run a little more intense, you need to buy roman candles. Roman candles are tubes of exploding shells; once the candle’s fuse is lit, it ignites a lifting charge which sends a star hurtling into the air, where it explodes. Typically, roman candles contain more than one star, which makes them lasting pyrotechnic fun.

A common practice is holding a lit roman candle tube while it is firing its shells — but this isn’t particularly wise. Any pyrotechnic could explode improperly, and if you are too close, you could be seriously injured. Roman candles are best enjoyed from a safe distance, which is about 100 feet away.

Bottle Rockets

Bottle rockets are attached to a stick, which you place in a bottle at an angle; when lit, the firework flies far into the air, usually with an exciting shriek and pop as they explode. You can get bottle rockets of varying size, which will fly farther and make more noise to greater effect. You can also find bottle rockets that drop prizes, like a tiny man with a parachute, for little ones to collect when the fireworks display is done.

Bottle rockets are so well-known that they sound benign, but in fact, these pyrotechnics can be among the most dangerous when handled improperly. As with roman candles, you shouldn’t hold a bottle rocket after lighting it, and you shouldn’t light bottle rockets off moving vehicles. There should be plenty of clearance on the ground and in the air, so the rocket doesn’t cause unnecessary damage to your surroundings.

Bees

Though bees might not have the name recognition of roman candles or bottle rockets, they deserve to be at the top of every must-have list of fireworks. These pyrotechnics are named for their iconic buzz, which they emit as they spin and zip around in thrilling and unexpected directions, not unlike an angry bee. You can set off several of these at once to brew up some chaos in the middle of your fireworks display.

16-shot Cakes

If you want a simple and straightforward fireworks show, you want an aerial cake. Cakes connect many aerial shells in sequence, so you can light the fuse, sit back and enjoy a display of glorious light and sound. You can find cakes that contain more shells, but we find that 16-shot cakes offer the perfect balance of experience and value. As a word of warning, you should let your neighbors know if you are going to light any aerial cakes because these fireworks make a good amount of noise.

Snakes

Not all fireworks create huge, sparkling explosions of light, color and sound. Some fireworks take place on the ground, create minimal smoke and noise, but still seem to delight all ages. The perfect example of this is the humble snake, which creates a giant, wiggling black snake out of nothing but fire and chemicals. Cleaning up the remains of the snake might not be the most fun, but watching the snake uncoil from its firework container makes it all worthwhile.