What's With the Crowns?

Nedra asked, "What's with the crowns?"

They are found in the Christmas crackers, of course.

So, I guess the next question is, "What is a Christmas cracker?"

We first saw one back in the 80's when my old sinkmate Teres (remember, Terry, Nikki, and I stayed with her in San Diego when we drove out there with you in 1979 and Pat had the jogging adventure in Phoenix?) brought us one when she returned from a few months in England. Here is the history of the cracker.

About 10 years later I was watching the movie Shadowlands and noted that C.S. Lewis, well Anthony Hopkins, really, was sitting at a table celebrating Christmas and there were crackers on the table and crowns on a few heads.

This is what a cracker looks like.


Inside a cracker is a prize. Usually it's a plastic trinket of some sort. Perhaps a magnifying glass or a kaleidoscope, a necklace, a miniature bowling game, a noisemaker, something like that. Also in the cracker is a little "packet" rubber banded together. It has a tissue paper crown all folded up and a piece of paper with a joke on it.

So, just before you eat and after you pray (at least that's how we do it), you all pop your crackers (by quickly pulling them apart so the cap inside goes off) on the count of three. Then, everyone MUST wear their hat no matter what the color and you use your joke as the conversation starter.

Next furlough, you're coming over no matter what time of year it is and we are going to do Christmas crackers!