What kind of a new year party is this?

I got a manicure last Friday, my haircut today, outside fireworks are booming and I still feel depressed.  I hate winter in places where it actually gets cold. It doesn't matter what I treat myself to, I still feel cold and irritable.  Now that I think about it, the fireworks make me feel worse.  When they started on January 23rd (Chinese New Year) it was kind of cool but after about an hour of it we stopped looking out the window and started to feel like we were living in a war zone.  For the past two weeks we have endured what sounds like firearms and bombs going off at any time of the day but especially at night.  I found out that the first, fifth, and fifteenth day are special so it's safest not to be outside walking or biking at night if you don't need to.  Tonight is the fifteenth night and I tried to take some pictures from our window to post but none of them came out very good.  I should have taken pictures the first night because they had huge fireworks going on right outside our building.  These are the fireworks you might see over a bridge or by a pier on Fourth of July back home but here its right outside your building and you're hoping that nothing catches on fire.  After that first night most of the fireworks just make really loud noises and are not so spectacular looking.  A few people have told me that last year there was much more fireworks.  People must be short on cash these days.  I've always equated lighting dangerous firecrackers with teenage boys, but on this side of the world its not the teenage boys standing on the street with matches lighting stuff as fast as they can.  It's the older ones!  I think a lot of the younger generation are used to seeing this every year and if you're lighting firecrackers just to see the show, it can get old after awhile.  But if you're superstitious and believe that you need to scare off the bad spirits at the beginning of the new year, you'll keep lighting those babies up 'til you've deafened all your neighbors and then some.  I just wish it was warmer so I could stop wearing big coats and boots.