#I've worked on several large projects documenting African American cemeteries in Florida

[yeoldenews]

Hi! It seems like fireworks and firecrackers were a very common item in Santa letters, to the extent that they’re often thrown in at the end along with fruit like a ‘default’ Santa gift. If you know, why and when did fireworks stop being a go-to present for kids to ask from Santa?

This is actually something I keep meaning to dig into more.

It was almost exclusively a Southern practice (particularly in the Deep South), but was so universal there that it's honestly more unusual for Southern kids to NOT ask for fireworks than to ask for them. I'm not sure if there were cultural aspects to this or was just because it makes more sense to give them where it's actually warm enough to shoot them off.

They seem to have been given primarily as a stocking-stuffers, as they are almost always listed alongside the standard fruit, nuts and candy.

From what I've seen, requests for fireworks dropped off sharply in the early 60s, though I as of yet haven't found any convincing reason as to why.

That's a bit early to coincide with the general shift away from little boys asking for firearms, which seems (from my observations at least) to be largely correlated with the advent of video games in the 70s and 80s.

It's possible it may have been a natural result of child safety standards evolving beyond the 'sure, give your six-year-old explosives, what's the worst that could happen?' that seems to have been the dominant attitude for the first half of the 20th century.

If anyone from the South has any insight on this I'd love to hear it.