Christmas crackers?

9 comments

1. My family has done them a couple of times, but usually no

2. They are available, but not a big part of our culture, though in a country of 330 million with millions of immigrants we have a little bit of everything.

3. They exist and I think many people would recognize them on seeing them. They aren’t a big part of Christmas and a lot of people wouldn’t know to call them “Christmas crackers” which sounds like it would be a food.

4. This may be confusing. A cracker here is what you would call an unsweetened biscuit, such as a Ritz. And we do have these at the holidays with all sorts of cheeses and spreads including this wine cheese thing that is unnatural and delicious.

   What you call crackers we sometimes call poppers. We have them. They aren’t common. They appear at dinners of people who had some more formal upbringing, in my experience.

5. You can find them in a few expensive grocery stores like whole foods. They are a recent import because of Harry Potter and Doctor Who.

   I was told there would be actual explosions.

6. One of my uncles bought a bunch for Thanksgiving one year and we made a homemade version (no crack, just tissue paper) one year when we were kids for New Year’s, but never at Christmas.

   They can be found, they’re just not a cultural touchstone for us.

7. I’ve seen them but never buy them.

8. No, and I only know of these because of Harry Potter. They seem fun but also wasteful (though there are plenty of extremely wasteful things that are common in American Christmas traditions).

9. I have no idea what kind of cracker you’re talking about, crackers here are things you eat like a Ritz cracker or a saltine cracker.