Some of you here might have heard of the gigantic handguns - or very short and equally Paul Bunyan-like carbines - that come under the category of Bollerschuetzen.
Often with bores approaching a couple of inches, and loaded up with a 'few hundred grains or so' of cannon powder, these 'salute guns' are shot up in the air to celebrate any special occasion imaginable here it's Christmas, but it equally be a birthday, birth or wedding - sometimes just for the fun of it - in the Bavarian Tyrol.
I'll let you be the judge of how much fun it can be, making noise and using up a year's worth of powder in a few minutes...
Watch -