Christmas cracker，圣诞拉炮（圣诞爆竹），是西方人庆祝圣诞时不可或缺的一道风景。

据说1850年伦敦的一个糖果小贩制作了第一只圣诞拉炮。现在流行的圣诞拉炮是由硬纸制成的一个筒，形状如同一个特别大的水果糖。两人一人拉一头，纸筒断开时发出小小的爆炸声。拿到大头的人获得其中的小礼物，一般包括一顶皇冠状的纸帽子、一个小玩具、一个写着笑话、谜语、或是脑筋急转弯小故事的纸条等。圣诞派对和圣诞大餐后，客人通常都会拉圣诞爆竹。

What is a Christmas Cracker?

A Christmas Cracker is a brightly coloured paper tube, twisted at both ends. A person pulls on each end of the cracker and when the cracker breaks, a small chemical strip goes “Pop” and the contents fall out.

What is inside a Christmas Cracker?

A Christmas cracker traditionally contains a paper crown, a small gift and a joke written on a slip of paper.

The gift in a cracker depends on how much you have paid for the cracker.The more you pay the better the quality of the gift.

A box of 12 crackers costing £10 could come with gifts such as a shoe horn, compact mirror, playing cards, screwdrivers, address book, tape measure, pad lock, bottle opener, tweezers, travel chess, photo frame and pen.

Who invented the Christmas Cracker?

Christmas crackers were invented by Thomas Smith in 1846.

During a visit to Paris he came across the bob-bon, a sugar almond wrapped in tissue paper (with a twist either side of the centrally placed sweet). Thomas decided to try selling similarly wrapped sweets in the lead up to Christmas in England. His bon-bons sold well at Christmas but not at other times of the year.

In the early 1850s Thomas came up with the idea of including a motto with the sweet. As many of his bon-bons were bought by men to give to women, many of the mottos were simple love poems.

In about 1860, Thomas added the banger, two strips of chemically impregnated paper that made a loud noise on being pulled apart. At first these novelties were called 'cosaques', but they soon became known as 'crackers'.

Unfortunately for Thomas, his 'cracker' idea was copied by other manufactures and so he decided to replace the sweet with a surprise gift.

When Thomas died his two sons took over the business. The paper hat was added to the cracker the early 1900s and by the end of the 1930s the love poems had been replaced by jokes or limericks.