Christmas always cracks up the family

I just celebrated my 26th Christmas with my lovely bride. Each Christmas has been special and each one has been a little different.

Around our house, one thing — besides the turkey — has remained the same. She loves those Christmas crackers and those corny jokes in each one. She even insists we put those silly paper crowns on our heads after pulling the cracker.

Christmas crackers are a cringing tradition as everybody around the table, one by one, reads their joke.

After a day of joy and high energy on little rest, after pulling the meal together and refereeing inevitable fights between kids (even adults sometimes), the cringing tradition has become an oasis of silly sanity around our dinner table. It’s probably pretty similar in many other homes, too.

This year, I decided to find out more about these crackers. Why? I don’t know, but I wondered where they came from and why they add so much to our Christmas dinner.