Christmas Crackers!

Christmas table settings customarily include a pretty Christmas cracker next to each plate, to be pulled apart with a SNAP! with a fellow diner before the meal begins. From each torn cracker tube falls a colourful paper hat, a motto, joke or riddle, and a miniature knick-knack, usually inexpensive. This ritual is all thanks to Londoner Thomas Smith (1823-69), who had a talent for making wedding cake decorations, plus a certain business acumen.

Remarkably, Smith was employed in a bakery from age 7. He set up his own wedding cake shop as a teenager and on a visit to Paris was intrigued to see bonbons wrapped individually in a twist of tissue paper. He began selling these in his shop and soon added a tiny love verse inside each wrapper. Looking for a way to add a surprise element, Smith then invented the cracker, removing the sweets and adding little gifts instead.

Faced with competition from a foreign manufacturer who stole his idea, Smith quickly produced a variety of designs and crowded out the market. After he died, his sons took over and Walter (1854-1923), the youngest, was particularly proactive and creative in boosting sales for Tom Smith & Co., which still exists today.

(Images LtoR: Smith by Jack 1956 at Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0, crackers by freshfoodvillage at Wikimedia Commons CC BY 3.0)