Christmas Cracker!

Happy Christmas!  While today is best remembered for the birth of Jesus Christ, and my is this a good celebration, today we would also like to commemorate a lesser known contributor to the festivities! No Christmas dinner is complete without the pulling of crackers (or bon-bon as it's known in Australia - you weirdos!), invented 1847AD.
 
For this we can thank their inventor -  Thomas Smith - who had developed the bon-bon sweet, sold in a twist of paper.   In the 1840s the sweets went through slumping sales, so Smith explored a few new promotional ideas.  His first was similar to fortune cookies, where he inserted a 'love message' into the wrapper.  Later he added the 'crackle' feature after hearing his log fire crackle.  To include the banger mechanism he had to enlarge the sweet wrapper.  The sweet was later dropped and swapped by a trinket; for example fans, jewelry, and other substantial items.  In 1906 Thomas Smith's Crackers were granted their first Royal Warrant in 1906 and the rest, as they say, is history!

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