A Christmas cracker is a brightly coloured paper tube, twisted at both ends. It is traditional in England and other countries at Christmas time. A person pulls on each end of the cracker and when the cracker breaks, a small chemical strip goes “Pop” and the contents fall out.
Let's go a bit further, do you know who invented Christmas crackers?
They were invented by Thomas Smith in 1846.
During a visit to Paris he came across the bob-bon, a
sugar almond wrapped in tissue paper (with a twist either side of the
centrally placed sweet). Thomas decided to try selling similarly wrapped
sweets in the lead up to Christmas in England. His bon-bons sold well at Christmas but not at other times of the year.
In the early 1850s Thomas came up with the idea of
including a motto with the sweet. As many of his bon-bons were bought by
men to give to women, many of the mottos were simple love poems.
In about 1860, Thomas added the banger, two strips of
chemically impregnated paper that made a loud noise on being pulled
apart. At first these novelties were called 'cosaques', but they soon
became known as 'crackers'.
Unfortunately for Thomas, his 'cracker' idea was copied by
other manufactures and so he decided to replace the sweet with a
surprise gift.
When Thomas died his two sons took over the business. The
paper hat was added to the cracker the early 1900s and by the end of the
1930s the love poems had been replaced by jokes or limericks.
from projectbritain.com
