This article has been written to shed light on one of the most popular, one of the most essential and at the same time, one of the most unnoticed of Christmas decorations, the humble Christmas cracker.
These small Christmas decorations we know and love today where developed by a Thomas J. Smith way back in 1847. Thomas J Smith was a sweet maker, baker and pastry chef from London, England. Tom would eventually create the Christmas cracker as a development of his sugar almond sweets, which he sold in a twist of paper. As sales of these sweets decreased, Tom began to think about new ways to promote his products. His first idea was to insert popular slogans and sayings into the wrappers of the sweets; however his ideas only brought limited success at first.
An early form of the cracker we see today was eventually developed when Tom became inspired to add the crackle or ‘bang’ element. But what inspired Tom to do this? It all started when he heard the crackle of a log he had put on the fire. This is the simple concept that eventually brought about the design of the cracker, which remains basically unchanged today.
Things moved on quickly, for a start the size of the paper wrapper used had to be increased to incorporate the banger mechanism, which in the early days was created by using gunpowder, the sweet itself was eventually dropped and replaced by a small gift or surprise.
Tom originally named his invention a ‘cosaque’, this was because the bang or cracking sound reminded him of the sound of a Cossack whip. His invention grew in popularity, eventually becoming known as the Christmas cracker. As awareness and subsequent popularity of the product grew, so did Toms business, eventually leading him to open a dedicated factory to keep up with the demand.
Unfortunately for Tom he never got to see the full scale and popularity of his invention, Tom died in his late 40’s; however his product continued to grow rapidly in its popularity. However Tom left behind six children who continued where he left off and developed the Christmas cracker into mass production. Tom’s original company traded right up to the mid 1950’s where it eventually merged with another company.
Tom’s legacy has seen the the Christmas cracker develop into a truly global business, with literally billions of crackers produced each year. The designs of which are still very similar Tom’s original concept. However modern innovation sees the Christmas cracker in many different varieties, from Eco friendly Christmas crackers to crackers designed around a particular theme to crackers that are developed for wedding, birthdays and many other celebrations around the world.
The shape of our modern crackers is now in the form of a cylindrical cardboard tube, coupled with a paper handle twisted on each end of the tube which has been developed for two people to hold and pull. They are full of modern gifts, ranging from cheap party hats to bespoke designs containing expensive gifts such as watches and other jewelry. The Christmas cracker remains an ever popular tradition of Christmas at parties and nevermore so than at a traditional Christmas dinner.
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Thank you for this interesting story. We use these crackers in our gift baskets because they are festive and beautiful. It is nice to know the meaning behind them.
very interesting story. thanks for it.