Guest Author - Karyn Johnson

Christmas is almost here! And you know what that means - Christmas crackers! What would Christmas be in England without the little tradition of wearing the paper crown that comes out of the cracker? But just how did crackers get their start?

You may have heard of Tom Smith. That is now a brand of Christmas crackers (as well as the name of the factory that made them), but it is also the name of the man who invented them.

Thomas Smith was a confectioner and stationer who came up with the concept of the Christmas cracker in the mid-19th century. In 1847, he was in Paris, where he saw the French Bon-bon, a sugared almond wrapped in waxed paper that was twisted on both ends. At the time, candies in England were sold unwrapped, so the idea of individually wrapping them was quite a novelty. He brought this concept back to England and sold them around Christmas, to great success.

By the time the following Christmas rolled around, Smith realized that he needed to get the edge over other confectioners who had followed his idea. Imitating the idea of the fortune cookie, he inserted a slip of paper into each bon-bon with a message, generally something romantic, and then wrapped the candies in plain colored paper.

Once again, this idea took hold, and to keep one-upping the competitors who copied him, he began adding little trinkets to the bon-bons. He marketed this idea around Christmas, which is how crackers came to be associated with the holiday.

Eventually, Smith found inspiration (supposedly from a smoldering log that crackled in his fireplace) to add the bang to the bon-bon. In 1860, Smith introduced the crackers, which contained a strip of saltpeter to make the cracking noise. Hence, the Christmas cracker was born. Other companies copied the idea, to be sure, but Smith's son, Walter, decided to make the Smith crackers stand apart by adding the paper hats and sundry designs, which are part of the Christmas crackers of today.

Traditionally, the cracker is pulled by two people until it cracks. The person receiving the largest portion gets to empty the contents and keep them.

While they are mostly associated with Christmas, crackers are now being used to commemorate other holidays, and are increasing in popularity in the United States, with crackers even being marketed for American holidays like Thanksgiving and Independence Day.