Mistletoe and Merry Crackertoa: The Spring-Loaded Christmas Cracker Explained

By Arthur Hodgson, Hamper Packing Manager at The Gourmet Pantry.

A Crackertoa is a Christmas cracker with a confetti popper built into it. You pull it the way you pull any cracker, it goes off with a real bang, and a shower of paper confetti comes out across the table along with the usual hat, joke and gift. We stock five Mistletoe & Merry designs, six crackers to a box, $39.95.

What actually happens when you pull one

An ordinary cracker works on friction. Two strips of card are glued into the tube with a chemical dab where they overlap, and when the tube is pulled apart the strips drag across each other hard enough to set the dab off. That is the snap. The tube tears in half, one person ends up holding the long end and the contents, and the whole event is over in about a second.

A Crackertoa keeps the pull and changes what is doing the work. Built into the tube is a streamer popper, so what you get is not a snap but a proper pop, and a spray of confetti out of the cracker instead of a puff of smoke. The maker calls the mechanism patented and describes the confetti as biodegradable paper. On our shelves the range is listed as springloaded, which is the word most people reach for once they have pulled one.

Two things follow from that, and both are worth knowing before the day. It is louder than a snap, so give fair warning to anyone at the table who would rather not be startled. And it puts confetti on the table rather than keeping it in the tube, which is a good thing at the start of lunch and a nuisance over plated food.

What is in the tube besides the confetti

The same three things a cracker has always had: a paper hat, a joke and a gift. The Traditional box lists 33 cm crackers, six to a tray, hand-made in South Africa, which is where every Mistletoe & Merry cracker is made.

The gift is the part worth caring about, because it is the only bit of a cracker anyone still owns on Boxing Day. That is the reason we range this brand: what falls out is an object rather than a novelty that goes into the bin with the wrapping paper. Those four parts, snap and hat and joke and gift, have barely changed since the 1840s, which is a story worth two minutes.

One plain warning, since nobody puts it on the box in words that help: the gift is a small object. On a table with a toddler at it, let an adult open theirs.

Why we call it a bon bon and not a cracker

A Crackertoa is sold here as a Christmas cracker and as a Christmas bon bon, and both names are correct. The cracker was the idea of a London confectioner, Tom Smith, in the 1840s. On a trip to Paris he saw sugared almonds sold in a twist of tissue paper, which the French called bonbons, and he brought the format home. It sold well at Christmas and poorly the rest of the year, so he kept adding to it: a printed motto first, then the snap, then a small trinket in place of the sweet. His sons added the paper hats. Britain ended up naming the thing after the noise it made. Australia and New Zealand kept the name of the sweet that used to be inside.

That is why the word does two jobs here. Ask someone to bring bon bons to Christmas lunch and they will arrive with crackers. See bonbon written as one word on a chocolate box or a dessert menu and it means a small filled sweet, which is what most of the world means by it. Our own shelves carry both: the Christmas bon bons range is crackers, while over in confectionery the Chocolatier Christmas Milk Stars Bon Bon is 55g of solid milk chocolate stars in gold foil, with nothing to pull and no bang. Bon bon, bon-bon and bonbon are all in use in Australia and none of them is wrong, though two words leans towards the cracker and one word leans towards the chocolate.

The five designs, and the table each one suits

All five Crackertoa boxes hold six crackers and all five are $39.95, so the choice is about how your table is dressed rather than what you want to spend.

They sit alongside the rest of the Christmas bon bons and the festive entertaining essentials if you would rather see the whole shelf at once.

How many boxes a table needs

One cracker per seat is the floor, not the answer. Six to a box means a table of six is covered exactly, which sounds tidy and never survives contact with the day. Someone brings a partner. A child pulls two. One gets pulled early by whoever set the table. Buy for the number of seats plus two.

In practice that is one box for four to six people, two for eight to twelve, and three for a long table with the extra leaf in. A spare box is not waste, either. Crackers keep in a cupboard, and the leftovers do the job again on New Year's Eve.

Where to pull them

Confetti goes where the cracker is pointing, so timing and position matter more with these than with a snap cracker. Pull them before the food comes to the table rather than between courses, or you will be picking paper out of the salad for the rest of the afternoon.

If you have the choice, pull them over boards or tiles rather than a rug. A broom clears confetti in about a minute and a vacuum on a rug takes considerably longer. Outside, which is where a good share of Australian Christmas lunch happens, the breeze makes the decision for you and takes the confetti across the lawn. Either accept that as part of the deal, or pull them at the table under cover before you carry everything out.

The last one is a hosting habit rather than a rule. Crackers are the only part of the table that everyone touches at the same moment, so they are worth doing deliberately: hats on, jokes read out badly, then the food. It is a short piece of theatre and it sets the tone for the next two hours.

Ordering, posting and timing

Weekday orders placed before 12pm are dispatched the same day from our packing room in Corio, just outside Geelong. Shipping is free Australia-wide on orders over $100. Crackers are long and light, so adding a box to an order that is already going costs very little in freight.

Australia Post confirms its Christmas cutoff dates in October, and interstate and remote addresses always close earlier than metro ones. Treat mid December as the practical limit for anything that has to be on the table on the day. There is no reason to leave crackers late in any case. They keep indefinitely in a cupboard, and they are the one Christmas item that is worth nothing at all if it turns up on the 26th.

Questions about Crackertoa crackers

What is a Crackertoa?

A Crackertoa is a Christmas cracker with a confetti popper built into the tube in place of the usual friction snap. Pulled at both ends it makes a louder pop than a standard cracker and throws a shower of paper confetti across the table. Inside there is still a paper hat, a joke and a gift. Mistletoe & Merry make them in South Africa, and we stock five designs at $39.95 a box of six.

Can you reuse Christmas crackers?

Not these, and not any cracker built around a snap or a popper. The mechanism fires once and the confetti is spent, so a pulled Crackertoa is finished. Refillable crackers do exist as a separate product, usually a fabric sleeve or a rigid tube you load yourself, and they are a different thing to shop for. What comes back out of a good cracker next year is the gift, not the cracker.

How do spring-loaded Christmas crackers work?

From the outside, exactly like any cracker: one person takes each end and pulls. The difference is what is inside. Rather than two card strips dragging across a chemical dab, there is a streamer popper built into the tube that fires as the cracker comes apart, so the energy goes into throwing confetti instead of into a snap. That is why it sounds closer to a party popper than a cap gun.

How many Crackertoa boxes does a table need?

Boxes hold six and the rule is one cracker per seat plus two spares, so one box covers four to six people, two cover eight to twelve, and a long table wants three. Buying exactly to the seat count is the common mistake, because someone always brings a guest and children rarely stop at one. Leftovers keep for New Year’s Eve. For a mixed table, where petites suit the small end and full-size crackers the adult end, we have costed the whole thing by seat count.

Why are Christmas crackers called bon bons in Australia?

Because the original was a sweet. Tom Smith wrapped French sugared almonds, or bonbons, in twists of tissue paper in the 1840s and sold them at Christmas. The sweet was later replaced by a hat, a joke and a small gift, but here the old name stayed attached to the object. Britain went with cracker instead, after the snap. In Australia the two words describe the same thing and most families use both.

If the food is sorted and the table setting is the gap, the Mistletoe & Merry range is the place to start. If it is the other way round, the Christmas hampers we pack by hand in Corio will take care of the eating.