21 sleeps to go - Going crackers...

Every year we buy them, every year we complain about how crappy they are. Why do we do it? Just what is it about Christmas crackers that makes us waste our money on them? It can’t be the toy. Even the posher crackers still contain something that, whilst delightful when we find it – a mini torch, a set of Lilliputian screwdrivers, a twisted wire Chinese puzzle – are doomed to end up at the back of a drawer along with all those other cracker toys from years gone by. Open any drawer in my house and somewhere you will find a minute plastic toy car or a tiny spinning top.

If not the toys then, could it be the hats? Who doesn’t love wearing a garish paper crown as they nibble their way through their unwanted Christmas pudding? A cracker paper hat turns us all into Kings and Queens. Apparently the hats represent the fools crown worn by the Lord of Misrule, a Twelfth Night custom of appointing the village idiot to get the party swinging with all manner of jolly jape.

Of course it could be the jokes. The secret of a good Christmas cracker joke is that isn’t meant to be funny – it needs to be groan-inducing and the bigger the groan, the better the joke. You know the type of thing I mean.

What school subject are snakes best at? – Hisstory… Groan!

What do you call a crazy golfer? - A crack put… Groaan!

What do vampires sing on New Year's Eve? - Auld Fang Syne… Groaaan!

What's the fastest thing in water? - A motor pike… Groaaaan!

What do you call a blind dinosaur? - A doyouthinkhesawus… Groaaaaan!

I could go on but I won’t. Well, perhaps just one more seeing as you are twisting my arm.

Knock, knock.

Who's there?

Wenceslas.

Wenceslas who?

Wenceslas train home?

Groaaaaaaaaaaan!

Maybe it’s the snapper? That thing that makes the cracker go snap occasionally as they often don’t work. Just why do we feel so disappointed when our cracker doesn’t snap, and why do we crawl around under the table trying to find that plastic whistle, tearing our hat so that we have to sellotape it in the process?

Ultimately I think it’s the combination of pointless competition, misguided anticipation, and childlike harmless fun that makes Christmas crackers such a hit. We love the snap, the intrigue of the pointless toy, the groan of that really bad joke, the gaudy paper wrapper, even the flimsy paper hat that we all now makes us look ridiculous even when they do fit.

Crackers are a piece of silliness, a small slice of the idiot misrule, laughter and festivity from our past. Forget wise men and the baby Jesus, maybe that’s what Christmas should really be about.