Christmas Crackers

The Christmas cracker was invented by a man who owned a sweet shop in London. He was called Tom Smith

In the 1840s he visited France and saw sweets that were wrapped up in twisted paper. He decided to try selling his sugar almonds wrapped in paper. They became a good seller and as many lovers were buying them to give to their sweethearts he started to enclose love mottos into them. They became very poplar with people traveling to his shop for them.

At Christmas he decided to try a similar idea with small toys, he placed them in paper that would pull apart like modern day crackers do. Later he was by his fire and a log crackled. This gave him the idea to put something into the cracker that would make a snap sound when it was pulled apart.