Christmas crackers bring the fun
JOBURG – Here is how Christmas crackers came to be the great addition to this festive time.
Did you know that the first Christmas cracker was made between 1845 and 1850 by a London sweet maker called Tom Smith.
This fact, and many others is shared on the site WhyChristmas.Com
Smith had seen the French bon bon sweets (almonds wrapped in pretty paper) on a visit to Paris in 1840. He went back to London and tried selling sweets such as that in England and also included a small motto or riddle in with the sweet, however, they didn’t sell very well.
By 1861, it is said Smith launched his new range of what he called ‘bangs of expectation’.
In much later years when Smith died, his expanding cracker business was taken over by his three sons, Tom, Walter and Henry. Walter introduced the hats into crackers and he also travelled around the world looking for new ideas for gifts to put in the crackers. The crowns might have been inspired by epiphany cakes from Europe which are often decorated with a paper crown on the top.
The Christmas crackers that are used today are said to be short cardboard tubes wrapped in colourful paper. There is normally a cracker next to each plate on the Christmas dinner table.
When the crackers are pulled, a colourful party hat, a toy or gift and a festive joke will most likely fall out. The party hats look like crowns and it is thought that they symbolise the crowns that might have been worn by the Three Wise Men.
