This year, like every year, people all around Guatemala set off fireworks on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve at midnight.
This is a video of Veronica silhouetted against our closest neighbor's fireworks display on Christmas Eve. We discovered an interesting phenomenon this year, which has actually happened in previous years, too, but we didn't figure it out until we could hardly see any fireworks due to thick fog this year on New Year's Eve.On both nights, the night started off clear as a bell, but it started getting foggy right before midnight. Especially on New Year's Eve, the fog increased in intensity until we couldn't see the fireworks at all, just loud booms all around! So we investigated "smoke-induced fog" and learned from the internet that it is an event that can happen if the atmospheric conditions are ripe for fog anyway. In fact, the fog increased in thickness until even the grass was wet around us and we could hardly see the outline of our fence, a phenomenon also described by the website as "induced fog thicker than normal."
So, as midnight approached and the merry-makers were getting started with small firecrackers all around us, they were actually inducing a fog that would inhibit the enjoyment of the actual event at midnight! Too bad!