Bursting fire crackers brings a lot of joy to the children during the Diwali and New Year. When you grow up, you generally tend to lose interest in it. But I have seen some grown up kids competing with the real kids in bursting crackers in India
fireworks are great. i have seen them from the ground as well as above. (mountain top, i could see Boston and surrounding towns) where i live you can buy fireworks but you cannot set them off, we do but its a crazy law.
Yeah for us it is usually 4th of July and New Years Eve. Occasionally at the larger parties we have, we'll light off a ton of mortars and rockets to go along with pudding wrestling for the ladies. That's about it.
Fire crackers are illegal in New York and New Jersey. They used to have a lot in China Town but it's hard to find them anymore.