Christmas crackers
Apart from delicious festive food and drinks, there is normally a cracker next to each plate on the Christmas dining table. A cracker does not mean a thin, crisp biscuit. In British culture, a Christmas cracker is a paper tube wrapped with coloured paper. Before dinner starts, you and the person sitting next to you pull each end of the cracker. When it pops open, it will make a mild bang. Traditionally, a Christmas cracker contains a small toy, a paper crown, and a joke or a riddle. This festive table decoration gives young and old a lot of fun.
The Christmas cracker was invented by Tom Smith, a British baker and confectioner, in the 1840s. He tried to sell beautifully wrapped sweets like those in France. They sold very well at Christmas time. To increase the sale, he inserted love messages into the sweet wrappers.
Legend says that Tom Smith got an idea of adding the “pop” element when he heard the crackling sound from a log fire one night. After he died, his son decided to put small gifts into the Christmas cracker.
除了美味的節日食物和飲品，聖誕節餐桌上每個碟子旁邊通常都放著cracker。英文cracker的意思並不是薄脆餅乾，在英國文化中，Christmas cracker（聖誕爆竹）是一根外層以彩紙包著的紙管。在聖誕餐開始前，你和坐在你身旁的人分別拉住聖誕爆竹的一端。當它瞬間爆開時，它會發出微弱的爆炸聲。傳統上，聖誕爆竹內有一個小玩具、一個紙皇冠，還有一個笑話或謎語。這個喜慶的餐桌裝飾品給老老少少帶來許多歡樂。
聖誕爆竹由英國麪包師傅兼糖果製造商湯姆．史密斯於19世紀40年代發明。他嘗試售賣包裝漂亮的糖果， 像法國售賣的糖果那樣，他的糖果在聖誕佳節時十分暢銷。為了增加銷量，他把寫滿愛心的字句夾入糖果包裝紙。
傳說中，湯姆．史密斯在一個晚上聽到柴火發出噼噼啪啪的響聲， 於是萌生了在糖果裡加入「砰」的聲音。他逝世後，他的兒子決定在聖誕爆竹內放進小禮物。
