Christmas Crack Up
When you stop and think about it, the Christmas Cracker is a really strange tradition. A tube of card wrapped in paper which when pulled apart goes “bang” and releases a small treat. Where did such a bizarre Christmas custom originate? The nearest equivalent would seem to be the Mexican pinata, however the pulling of a cracker by two people seems more akin to the sharing of a wishbone.
Tom Smith
“Tom Smith was a sweet maker who used to sell sugar almonds wrapped in twists of coloured paper, these were inspired by the “bon-bons” he’d seen in Paris. To increase sales in his store, he began to include little mottos inside, rather like a fortune cookie. He took the simple principle of the wrapped sweet or ‘bon bon’ and added first a love motto then later after much experimenting, a strip of paper impregnated with a compound which would ‘crack’ when opened.
Smith hit upon a method of making the “crack” mechanism by using saltpetre which was ignited by friction to produce the bang sound. He originally called his new invention “Cosaques”, apparently because the cracking sound reminded him of the Cossack’s whips. However this name gradually faded from use. In order for the cracking mechanism to fit, the size of the sweet had to be increased. Over the course of time he dropped the sweet, lengthened the wrapper and introduced small novelty gifts.
The earliest Tom Smith archive material in the Victoria & Albert museum in London offers his catalogues covering confectionery, superb cake decorations and fancy goods from the 1870’s in which Crackers or “Cosaques” as they were known in their infancy are also listed. Further examples from the late 1870’s and 1880’s at the English National Archive at Kew and some of my own archive material from the 1890’s show significant growth on the Cracker side of things.
Amongst surviving Tom Smith material and that of other cracker companies one is immediately struck by the sheer quality and inventiveness of the graphics used on the early box labels which, at their best are superb. The range over the years was enormous and firstly Tom and subsequently his children (he had six!) after he died, were forward thinking and enthusiastic in embracing the use of publicity and advertising together with the presentation of their beautiful Crackers, wonderful scraps and amazing box imagery.
Christmas Cracker Sales
The first Christmas crackers went on sale in London in 1847. They rose in popularity, being produced for any major event and not just for Christmas time. A team of writers were employed to compose witty sayings or jokes and his son, Walter, started including paper hats. Many crackers were commissioned with gifts ranging from the expensive to the ridiculous and also ‘By Appointment to The Crown’.
There is one tale of a gentleman sending a diamond ring for inclusion in a cracker along with a ten shilling note to pay the company for their effort. Sadly he didn’t include his address and the company still keep the diamond ring and the money locked away in their safe.
Smith’s new crackers continued to grow in popularity and he eventually opened a factory to manufacture them. In 1953 Tom Smith’s company merged with Caley Crackers. Today there are a huge range of crackers on the market.”
The Christmas cracker has sometimes received a bad rap for including an inane motto or appalling joke and a cheap plastic “gift”. Oh, and a brightly coloured paper hat. I don’t know about you but for me Christmas just wouldn’t be the same without that silly hat and a groanworthy joke! One more sleep.
