Long ago, in a land which is now called Turkey , there was a bishop named Nicholas. Nicholas lived in the fourth century A.D. He was very wealthy and generous, and he loved to make children happy. Often, he would give gifts to very poor children -- sometimes by throwing them into their windows!

After Nicholas died, he was canonized as a saint. His feast day is December 6 -- a holiday in many countries. He is the patron saint of children and seafarers. In the Netherlands , the saint's name, Sinter Nikolass, became shortened to Sinter Klaas. And as Dutch people immigrated to the United States , the name evolved into what it is today - Santa Claus!

The Dutch Saint Nicholas also wore a beard and a red cloak trimmed with white fur. Saint Nicholas left gifts for good children in their shoes -- not under trees or in stockings, as he does today.

The tradition of having a Christmas tree in the house comes from a different part of the world -- Germany . Since the Middle Ages, or perhaps before, trees have been thought to be good luck. Whenever someone would start to build a house, a small evergreen tree would be nailed to one of the tallest beams. Gradually, this tradition came to be repeated at Christmas time, by bringing a small tree into the house and decorating it. As German immigrants came to the United States , they brought with them the tradition of Christmas trees.

Christmas Crackers

Crackers are very popular and accompany many meals over the Christmas period, especially on Christmas Day.

A Christmas Cracker is a brightly coloured paper tube, twisted at both ends. There is a banger inside the cracker and when it is pulled by two people, the cracker snaps in half making a loud bang.

Inside the cracker there is a paper crown made from tissue paper (see photo on left), a joke on a slip of paper and a little gift.

How to pull a cracker
The traditional way to pull a cracker is crossing your arms and pulling a whole circle of crackers all around the table. Everyone holds their crack in their right hand and pulls their neighbours cracker with the free left hand.

History of Christmas Crackers

Christmas crackers were invented by Thomas Smith in 1846.
During a visit to Paris he came across the bob-bon, a sugar almond wrapped in tissue paper (with a twist either side of the centrally placed sweet). Thomas decided to try selling similarly wrapped sweets in the lead up to Christmas in England . His bon-bons sold well at Christmas but not at other times of the year.

In the early 1850s Thomas came up with the idea of including a motto with the sweet. As many of his bon-bons were bought by men to give to women, many of the mottos were simple love poems.

In about 1860, Thomas added the banger, two strips of chemically impregnated paper that made a loud noise on being pulled apart. At first these novelties were called 'cosaques', but they soon became known as 'crackers'.

Unfortunately for Thomas, his 'cracker' idea was copied by other manufactures and so he decided to replace the sweet with a surprise gift.

When Thomas died his two sons took over the business. The paper hat was added to the cracker the early 1900s and by the end of the 1930s the love poems had been replaced by jokes or limericks.