How Many Christmas Crackers Per Person, by Table Size

By Emily Patrikakos, Brand Executive at The Gourmet Pantry.

Buy one Christmas cracker per seat, then two spares. Six seats wants eight crackers, twelve wants fourteen. The spares cover the one that pulls badly and the guest nobody mentioned. Size decides as much as the count: 18cm crackers suit small hands and crowded place settings, 30cm to 33cm suit the middle of the main table.

What follows is the seat count worked through table by table, what it costs per cracker rather than per tray, and which size belongs at which end. The full range sits on the Christmas bon bons page once you have your number.

The seat count, and why two spares

One per place setting is the floor, not the answer. Trays hold six or twelve, so a table of six is covered exactly, and a table covered exactly never survives contact with the day. One cracker in a tray will pull badly and go off with a sigh in front of an audience. Someone brings a partner. A child pulls two. Buy for the number of seats plus two and the problem stops being a problem.

Leftovers are not waste. Nothing in a cracker needs refrigerating, the trays stack flat, and the spares do the job again on New Year's Eve.

Mixing collections is the move most people miss. Petites at the children's end and full-size crackers at the adult end costs less than one collection across the whole table, and it stops a five-year-old wrestling a 33cm cracker. Nobody notices the mix once they are laid out.

Cost per cracker, not cost per tray

The tray price is the number on the tile and it is the wrong one to compare. Trays hold six or twelve, so two trays at the same price can be double each other per head. Divide before you decide.

• A $19.95 petite tray of six is about $3.30 a cracker, the cheapest way to dress a table properly.
• A $49.95 tray of twelve is about $4.15 a cracker, and it seats a full table without a second box.
• A $39.95 tray of six is about $6.65 a cracker, and you are paying for length and presence on the plate.
• A $6.95 pet cracker is sold singly, which is the only sane way to buy a cracker for a dog.

Read that way, a table of eight starts under $40 and a table of twelve done well lands around $50. Two trays at $49.95 come to $99.90, ten cents under the $100 line for free Australia-wide shipping, so if you are buying two, add the $6.95 cat cracker and the postage sorts itself out.

Which size belongs at which end of the table

Sizes are the maker's, rounded. Every collection below is handcrafted by Mistletoe & Merry in South Africa, and every tube holds a paper hat, a joke and one quality gift rather than a token, which is the part that decides whether anything is still in the house in January.

The children's end, and the one for the dog

Cracker ranges are designed for the middle of the table. The children's end gets the same 33cm tube an adult gets, and the dog gets nothing at all, which is roughly why the dog spends lunch under the table looking hard done by. Two parts of the range fix that, and both change your seat count.

For small hands the problem is scale. A 33cm cracker held by a five-year-old is a lever, and the pull turns into a tug of war they lose. The 18cm Petite Mini Nutcrackers and Petite Watercolour Icons trays solve it at $19.95 for six, and they still carry a proper gift, a hat and a joke. The Games Paper Planes tray goes further and changes the afternoon: each 30cm cracker holds the materials for a paper plane instead of a keyring, so the pull is the start of something rather than the end of it. Expect a quiet ten minutes of folding, then a considerably less quiet ten with planes crossing the table.

For the animals, count one per head and stop there. The Pets Dogs cracker is 35cm and sold on its own at $6.95, with dog-friendly treats inside alongside the usual hat and joke. The Pets Cats cracker is the same size and price, holding a pet-safe surprise described as a wicker ball, a pompom ball or a fish-shaped toy, so nobody knows which until it goes off. Selling them singly is the part that makes sense, because nobody needs six crackers for one dog.

The bang is a real bang. Two adults can take an end each and pull well away from the animal, then hand over whatever falls out. A nervous dog should meet it from the far side of the room, or not at all, and there is no rule saying the cracker has to be pulled in front of the cat. Open it, look at what came out, and decide then. Manufacturers write for a general animal. You know yours.

When to order, and where to keep them

Nothing inside a cracker needs refrigerating, so a tray can sit in a cupboard from the day it arrives. Order once the table plan is settled, which for most households is November. Designs are made in set runs and the popular ones thin out through December, and a sold-out tray does not come back until the following season. Australia Post confirms its Christmas dates in October, and interstate and remote addresses always close earlier than metro ones, so treat mid December as the practical limit. Store the trays flat, not under anything heavy, and keep them out of a hot car.

We hand-pack and dispatch from Corio, just outside Geelong. Weekday orders placed before 12pm are dispatched the same day, which is dispatch rather than delivery, and shipping is free Australia-wide on orders over $100. Crackers are long and light, so adding a tray to an order already going costs very little in freight.

Pull them before the food comes to the table rather than between courses. Paper hats, torn card and gift wrap over a table of hot plates is how a crown ends up in the gravy. When the pulling is done, collect the gifts into one bowl instead of leaving them down the table, which is the difference between something kept and something swept up with the wrapping paper.

Questions about cracker numbers

How many Christmas crackers do you need per person?

One each, plus two spares for the table rather than two each. The spares are not padding: one cracker in a tray will pull badly, and someone always arrives with a partner nobody mentioned. Six seats wants eight crackers, eight seats wants ten, twelve seats wants fourteen.

How many Christmas crackers do I need for a table of 12?

Fourteen. That is one tray of twelve plus two from a second tray, or two trays of six with two petites at the small end. If children are at the table, six petites at their end and eight full-size crackers at the adult end covers everyone and costs less than one collection across the whole table.

What size Christmas cracker should I buy?

Match the size to the seat, not to the room. About 18cm suits children, place settings and a table already crowded with food. About 30cm is the general-purpose size and the one that fills a tray of twelve. About 33cm lies across a dinner plate and reads as part of the setting rather than something perched on it. The 35cm pet crackers are sold singly.

Do Christmas crackers keep from one year to the next?

Yes. There is nothing perishable in one, so spares from a tray keep in a cupboard indefinitely and come out again on New Year's Eve or next December. Store them flat and away from heat. What does not carry over is the design: ranges change every season, so a half-used tray will not match a new one.

Once the number is settled, the Christmas bon bons range runs from $6.95 for a single cracker. If you want the mechanism rather than the maths, the spring-loaded Crackertoa is explained separately, and the case for making your own is costed honestly. The rest of the table is on the festive entertaining essentials page, and if a hamper is on the list too, the Christmas hampers ship from the same warehouse in the same order.