Christmas Facts #1

Christmas crackers first appeared in 1847 when Victorian confectioner, Tom Smith, created a colour Paper package for sweets with a chemical-impregnated strip of Paper which created a noise when pulled apart. Smith had got the beginning of the idea in 1840 when he saw sugared almonds wrapped in twists of Paper in Paris. Apocryphally, he is said to have got the finishing touch to the idea of the cracker when sitting in front of the fire watching the logs crackle.

Toys replaced sweets as cracker contents in the late Victorian period.