In 2013, Diwali, the festival of lights, will be celebrated on Nov. 3 by Hindus, Jains and Sikhs. The word Diwali comes from the Sanskrit deepavali, which means a row of lights.

Diwali is now commonly celebrated outside of India with modern fireworks such as sparklers, bangers and fountains instead of some of the more traditional, age old pyro built and used in India for centuries.

Sky lanterns are also becoming more popular for the festival of lights, and more and more participants are now buying fireworks online and having them delivered right to their homes.

   One of the first items that comes to mind if you think back to your youth is probably the simple, inexpensive bottle rockets.  Well if some things don’t change in China where these small wonders that take off wish a whoosh and end with a sharp pop are manufactured they may very well become harder and harder to find.

Mortar Fireworks is a common search term, also known as reloadable mortar shells, actually the mortar is reloadable not the shell!  This is a sometimes misused term in fireworks so let’s set the story straight.  Shells, are the actual firework.  Mortars, are the tube the shell is loaded into and fired from.  Common, safe firework mortars may be made from cardboard, fiberglass or high density polyethylene (HDPE)  depending on the strength of the shell to be launched.  Cardboard is acceptable for some lower powered shells such as Festival Balls and Black Box artillery, however HDPE or fiberglass is almost always a better choice, and to take safety and your display up even another notch we recommend firing even consumer shells out of mortars in racks.