Novelty Christmas Crackers

The animal print Christmas cracker in the foreground is handmade here in Tanzania. The red & green foil covered cracker in the background is made in South Africa

(I have my friend Shannon in Texas to thank for the inspiration for this blog post - as it was through her that I discovered that Christmas Crackers aren’t found all over the world and used by everyone at Christmas time – so I decided to write about them & share the tradition with those of you who may not know what they are. Thanks, Shannon !)

Christmas crackers (the novelty type – not the edible ones !) are very much a part of Christmas for us. They always feature on the table at our main Christmas meal (which is lunch time on Christmas day in our home) as part of the table settings. Each person usually finds a cracker on his/her side plate and tradition dictates that they are ‘pulled’ before the meal begins.

The Tanzanian cracker above (which my daughter & I 'pulled' today) is a top quality handcrafted one and contained a green crepe paper 'crown' hat, a handmade African bead necklace and a joke ('Why do lions eat raw meat ? Because they don't know how to cook it !')

The crackers are basically cardboard tubes covered with brightly coloured paper twisted on each side - much like a large wrapped sweet or candy. Inside the cracker you will usually find a paper hat, a really silly joke on a separate piece of paper, and a gift of some sort - plastic toys such as whistles, magnifying glasses etc in the cheaper crackers and nail scissors, key chains etc in the more expensive ones.

The fun in pulling the cracker (with the person sitting next to you) is that it makes a small ‘bang’ when it is pulled, and then everyone is usually left scurrying aound and under the table, looking for their gift ! Everyone then puts their paper hats on (which look like flimsy crowns) & take it in turns reading their corny jokes before the meal begins !

The shop bought cracker contained a red plastic 'crown' hat, a silver paper clip/holder & a joke which read 'What do you call a rocking chair fitted with wheels ? A Rock-and-Roller !'

The story goes that crackers were invented by a man called Thomas Smith in England in 1847. They were created by him as a development of his bon-bon sweets, which he sold in a twist of paper. Sales of bon-bon’s had been slumping, so Smith came up with the idea of adding a motto into the bon-bon wrappers (much like fortune cookies) - after limited success with this, he decided to replace the sweet with a gift and add a ‘crackle’ element by pasting saltpeter (potassium nitrate) on to 2 thin strips of cardboard that when friction was generated by them being pulled apart, created a small ‘bang’. (The inclusion of paper hats and jokes were introduced later on).

I have quite a few Christmas crackers this year, so we will use them for both the Christmas and the Boxing day meal

Over the past few years, Christmas crackers have finally become available in Tanzania - as one of the local leprosy homes makes them and sells them to raise funds each year. In my opinion, these are the best Christmas crackers I’ve ever come across as they are not only beautifully handmade, but also contain lovely quality handmade gifts such as beaded milk jug covers, necklaces and leather key tags. I’ve included some photo’s of these, along with the shop bought variety (these ones pictured come from South Africa) and what the contents look like once pulled – my daughter was thrilled as I let her pull/open 2 of them today so that I could photograph them for the blog !

I believe that Christmas crackers are found in the UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia and a few European countries. Do you have them in your country ? If so, what are they like ? I’d love to hear from readers who have them, and what they are like in each different country.

Happy Christmas cracker pulling, everyone !