Breakfast Bytes Blogs

UPDATE: Cadence will not attend the Consumer Electronics Show in-person as originally planned.

Do you know what Christmas crackers are?

You can buy them on Amazon, and perhaps elsewhere, but they are not really a thing in the US. But you'd be hard-pressed to find a household in Britain that doesn't have some crackers during the holiday season. They are the traditional way to wrap up any holiday meal, typically on Christmas Day itself (25th December) or on what is called Boxing Day (26th December). Of course, like here, many people take vacation the entire week from Christmas Eve to January 1st, or their companies are shut down anyway. But officially both 25th and 26th are public holidays (except in Scotland who get 2nd January instead of 26th December to recover from Hogmanay).

So what are they?

Basically, each cracker is designed to be "pulled" by two people. One person holds one end, and the other holds the other end. When you pull, the two parts come apart.

Inside, there are traditionally three things: a paper hat, a toy, and a joke, as in the picture. In this picture the hat is really upmarket since it is usually just made from tissue paper and tightly wrapped so it fits in the cracker. This toy, a metal whistle, is really upmarket too. Usually, it is a plastic trinket. And the joke is always kid-friendly, but also traditionally an order of magnitude worse than a Dad-joke. For instance, the one in this cracker reads:

Q: What do snowmen call their offspring?
A: Chill-dren!

In Britain, there is a device inside that makes the cracker go "snap" when the cracker is pulled. In the US, they are now all no snap, without the little device. Here's Condé Nast Traveler in a piece titled Airlines Ban Christmas Crackers, to the Dismay of British Travelers:

While many in the U.S. likely haven’t heard of the ubiquitous cracker (and no, it is not edible), if you hail from the U.K., Ireland, or a Commonwealth country like Australia or Canada, you'll most likely know Christmas crackers as an essential part of the holiday experience—as authentic as hot mugs of eggnog and presents under the tree. Planning to fly out of the U.S. with a box of crackers in your suitcase? Think again: According to the TSA website, Christmas crackers are banned at airports nationwide.

So the killjoys at the TSA mean that crackers are now sold without the snap so you can take them on planes. In Britain, toddlers pull them without any problem.

I tried to find a picture of a snap to show you what they are...and it turns out you can buy them separately in the US. And, as any British kid can tell you, you can pull the end of the cracker gently to open up where it is crimped, and then remove or add to the contents! So I guess you can add your own snaps.

Boxing Day

The 26th December is not a special day in the US, and certainly doesn't have a special name. But in the UK it is called Boxing day. It is a public holiday (although if it falls on the weekend, the public holiday gets moved to the following Monday, but Boxing Day itself is always 26th). It was originally associated with giving alms to the poor (in boxes), although other theories are available, such as giving "Christmas boxes" (tips) to tradespeople, a custom that goes back far enough that it is mentioned in Pepys Diary.

These days it is like the day after Thanksgiving, "Black Friday", and is more associated with shopping than charity.

Kinder Eggs

Here's another thing that you don't have in the US: Kinder Eggs. These are a chocolate egg, and inside is a plastic capsule, and inside the capsule is a little toy. It is illegal to import or sell Kinder Eggs in the US, and I have read stories of kids having them confiscated at the border from Canada (where they are legal) to the US. I assumed it was because the small parts might be a choking hazard, but it is weirder than that:

The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act prohibits Kinder Eggs, as they don't allow confectionary products to contain a “non-nutritive object”. It bans "the sale of any candy that has embedded in it a toy or trinket".

As you can see on the right, it appears Russian kids are smarter than American kids!

Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year

Cadence is off from tomorrow. Have a great break (and perhaps some good seafood).

Breakfast Bytes will not appear until January 4th when Cadence is back. I'll start the year by taking a look at what 2022 is the year of.

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