thumb|Christmas crackers
Christmas crackers are festive table decorations that make a snapping sound when pulled open, and typically contain a small gift, paper hat and a joke. They are part of Christmas celebrations in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Commonwealth countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa.
A cracker consists of a segmented cardboard tube wrapped in a brightly decorated twist of paper with a prize in the centre, making it resemble an oversized sweet-wrapper. The cracker is pulled apart by two people, each holding an outer chamber, causing the cracker to split unevenly and leaving one person holding the central chamber and prize.
Tradition
thumb|Dinner party guests pull a cracker
Crackers are traditionally pulled during Christmas dinner or at Christmas parties. One version of the cracker ritual holds that the person who ends up with the larger end of cracker earns the right to keep the contents of the cardboard tube. Sometimes, each participant retains ownership of their own cracker and keeps its contents regardless of the outcome. Christmas crackers traditionally contain a colourful crown-shaped hat made of tissue paper, a small toy, a plastic model, or a trinket, and a small strip of paper with a motto, a joke, a riddle, or a piece of trivia. The paper hats, with the appearance of crowns, are usually worn at Christmas dinner. The tradition of wearing festive hats is believed to date back to Roman times and the Saturnalia celebrations, which also involved decorative headgear. in the year of his death.
History
The Oxford English Dictionary records the pulling of crackers from 1847.
Tom Smith
thumb|right|Catalogue for [[Tom Smith (confectioner)|Tom Smith's Christmas Novelties from 1911]]
Tradition tells of how Tom Smith (1823–1869) of London invented crackers in 1847. He created the crackers as a development of his bon-bon sweets, which he sold in a twist of paper (the origins of the traditional sweet-wrapper). As sales of bon-bons slumped, Smith began to come up with new promotional ideas. His first tactic was to insert love messages into the wrappers of the sweets (similar to fortune cookies).
Smith was inspired to add a "crackle" element after hearing the crackle of a log he had just put on a fire. The size of the paper wrapper had to be increased to incorporate the banger mechanism, and the sweet itself was eventually dropped, to be replaced by a trinket: fans, jewellery and other substantial items. The new product was initially marketed as the Cosaque (French for Cossack),
Art
thumb|Norman Rockwell (1919)
A Christmas cracker is the subject of The Party Favor, an oil painting by American artist Norman Rockwell.
The painting appeared as cover art for The Saturday Evening Post on 26 April 1919.
Records
The World's Largest Christmas Cracker was measured at 63.1 m (207 ft) long and 4 m (13 ft) in diameter and was made by the parents of children at Ley Hill School and Pre-School, Chesham, Buckinghamshire, UK on 20 December 2001.
The longest Christmas cracker pulling chain consisted of 1081 people and was achieved by The Harrodian School in London on 10 December 2015.
On 17 August 2020, while filming a Christmas episode of the television series QI, British comedian Alan Davies set a Guinness World Record for the most crackers pulled by an individual in 30 seconds. He achieved 35 successful cracks, outscoring fellow panelist Justin Moorhouse by five in a head-to-head competition. Davies' record stood until Joel Corry achieved 41 successful cracks at Capital's Jingle Bell Ball on 12 December 2021.
Flight restrictions
Rules on transporting Christmas crackers in luggage vary by airline and airport. Passengers on commercial flights in and to the United States are explicitly prohibited from carrying Christmas crackers on board or in checked baggage.