English Christmas Question: Do many families in England use the "crackers" at their Christmas dinners? All the English TV shows have them. We've been doing that in our family for...

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Do many families in England use the "crackers" at their Christmas dinners? All the English TV shows have them. We've been doing that in our family for years. Amazon has lots of choices. You can also buy them from Fortnum and Mason in England, for £250 and up - each.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=christmas+crackers&crid=BUAWQZ38T6OY&sprefix=christmas+crackers%2Caps%2C96&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

pilgrim1951 Loc: New Jersey

We spent last year in the Cotswolds and London during Christmas through New Years. We were walking around the wonderful Cotswold village we were staying in and we could see numerous families with their crowns on eating dinner on Christmas Day through the front windows!

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

pilgrim1951 wrote:

We spent last year in the Cotswolds and London during Christmas through New Years. We were walking around the wonderful Cotswold village we were staying in and we could see numerous families with their crowns on eating dinner on Christmas Day through the front windows!

Did that have crackers???

RicknJude Loc: Quebec, Canada

Longshadow wrote:

Did that have crackers???

The paper crowns come from inside the crackers.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

RicknJude wrote:

The paper crowns come from inside the crackers.

Ahhh, thanks.

Sylvias Loc: North Yorkshire England

Yes we do Jerry.

tramsey Loc: Texas

Never heard of this, I'm Norwegian and too busy eating my lutefisk and lefse

DebAnn Loc: Toronto

jerryc41 wrote:

Do many families in England use the "crackers" at their Christmas dinners? All the English TV shows have them. We've been doing that in our family for years. Amazon has lots of choices. You can also buy them from Fortnum and Mason in England, for £250 and up - each.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=christmas+crackers&crid=BUAWQZ38T6OY&sprefix=christmas+crackers%2Caps%2C96&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

I'm English, although I've lived in Canada for most of my life. We always had crackers on the table when I was young. The tradition clearly is alive and well in Toronto. The stores were full of boxed crackers so many families must be buying them.

TonyP Loc: New Zealand

Yep, same here in NZ although we call them bonbons. Now I have to wonder why they are called bonbons?
The hats aren't called crowns here, they are called, hats.
Inside they have the hats, a bit of paper with a joke on it, and small trinkets, whoever gets the largest bit of bonbon when its pulled, gets the stuff inside. The more expensive the pack of bonbons, the more expensive the stuff inside.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

pilgrim1951 wrote:

We spent last year in the Cotswolds and London during Christmas through New Years. We were walking around the wonderful Cotswold village we were staying in and we could see numerous families with their crowns on eating dinner on Christmas Day through the front windows!

Thanks.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

TonyP wrote:

Yep, same here in NZ although we call them bonbons. Now I have to wonder why they are called bonbons?
The hats aren't called crowns here, they are called, hats.
Inside they have the hats, a bit of paper with a joke on it, and small trinkets, whoever gets the largest bit of bonbon when its pulled, gets the stuff inside. The more expensive the pack of bonbons, the more expensive the stuff inside.

Interesting. The ones from Amazon also have the joke and the trinket.

bonbons - good good, maybe?

Brian J.

The reason they are called "crackers" is the noise they make when pulled apart. I read, however, that the name may need to change as someone has suggested that the silver used in making the noise is "dangerous" to the environment so wants the makers of crackers to stop the noise source! We had crackers in England when I was growing up & so we continued using them here in the U.S.A. so I wonder how I made it to 85 years of age with all that "poison" in my environment!

riderxlx Loc: DFW area Texas

jerryc41 wrote:

Do many families in England use the "crackers" at their Christmas dinners? All the English TV shows have them. We've been doing that in our family for years. Amazon has lots of choices. You can also buy them from Fortnum and Mason in England, for £250 and up - each.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=christmas+crackers&crid=BUAWQZ38T6OY&sprefix=christmas+crackers%2Caps%2C96&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

I have never heard of or seen this before. But of course, living in Texas we always have tamales at Christmas and Thanksgiving As one of the main food items. So this is an interesting post, which I was not aware of this tradition.

alawry Loc: Timaru New Zealand

Jerry I am also in NZ with a lot of english heritage, yes, popular here but not so much of the "Bon Bon" and more "Christmas Crackers" I guess things like this are cultural and vary from family to family. Thinking, having written that, being nearly 70 I will concede there is a lot less English Heritage here than (say) 50 or even 20 years ago; we are much more multi cultural. When I was a kid I was into shortwave radio, DXing, pretty much the only way to hear a language other than english. Now I walk down the street and thru a mall, and hear a dozen different languages an think nothing of it. You, Jerry, Keep up the good work. Cheers.

jerryc41 wrote:

Interesting. The ones from Amazon also have the joke and the trinket.

bonbons - good good, maybe?

mtcoothaman Loc: Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Many Australians do it too. Silly paper crowns, cheap toys and lame jokes from inside a bon bon.