Christmas Crackers

Elaine those are common here, usually in the cheaper crackers ( cause those hats are dumb!) , lol . You can get them anywhere that sells crackers usaully Winners, Homesense, many drug stores, ,even costco and Walmarts,, almost all will have those hats in them, perhaps a few exceptions. I would just go shopping one day and look around. Perhaps Christmas Crackers are not common where you live?? Mostly people buy them to decorate the dinner table.

Check the Christmas crackers that Williams-Sonoma sells, the ones I bought there 4 or so years ago had hats in them.

I saw some last year at Target, of all places. You might try there.

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll try Williams-Sonoma - there is one on the other side of the city. Out local Walmart didn't have any, and Target, if they got them this year, is out of them now. I was there last night.
Maybe this is the excuse I needed for a day of shopping in Charlotte or Charleston. It does seem silly, since I do agree with Pat that the hats are cheap, but my daughter loves them and you know how Moms always try to please the kiddies at Xmas.

I found nice ones at Pier 1 the last two years; before that I was able to find them at Target, but, either others had discovered them and they ran out, or that one year was an anomaly. Those silly paper crowns, cheap-o toys, and goofy jokes have been the hit of the last three Christmases. Everyone becomes a kid again :)

There's a Party City at Columbia Place Mall, they usually carry them. Or you could order them from them online, probably would deliver by Christmas.

Williams Sonoma has them onlineI just ordered some. The LARGE size ones have the paper crowns in them.

I was ready to post and say that these are easy to get! We have 'em every year, and then I realized that my mom is that one that always gets them. ; ) So, I decided I too need to figure this out, just in case mom forgetsshe is turning 88 next year! Here's what I found on link Christmas Crackers USA Don't like the picture here. The implication is that these are for children when in truth everyone at our Christmas dinner table wears that silly crown. And then there's this site for Tom Smith Christmas Crackers in North Carolina. Buy soon, they are out of stock on a lot! And then there are other links to try. Have fun and hope you all smile a lot and look as silly as we do. Pam

You can get them here...http://www.britishfooddepot.com/searchquick-submit.sc?keywords=christmas+crackers

Thanks for all the suggestions - I'm off on a shopping spree tomorrow. I can try Party City, W_S, and Pier 1. Hopefully I'll get lucky.
They are such a fun tradition at Christmas. When I was a child In Canada we had them at all the kid's birthday parties too. That was waaay back though....

It's been asked on a travel site, because Elaine figured that she would find kindred spirits here in regards to UK products. ; ) And, it worked!

I went to that Christmas Crackers USA site. THey had a big ion but a lot of the really nice ones were already sold out. I ordered the ready-to-fill crackers - they are pre-filled with that very important paper hat and the joke. Then I can add some meaningful but tiny treat. The anecdote about Xmas crackers classified as explosives - that's hysterical - whoever who have thought that!!! Thanks for the warning. Kat - after you've been here for a while, you'll realize this is much more than a travel site. Pam got it right - kindred spirits here.

Oh, that's good...the way you had described it initially sort of made it sound as though you had been placed on a terror watch or no fly list because of your exploding treats. Totally unrelated, but the topic of Christmas Crackers reminded me that we'll probably have one of those dumb yet annual Kinder Egg threads in a few months. I was in Toronto last week and visited a supermarket that had all sorts of interesting treats from around the world up at the checkout line (impulse purchase stuff), including Kinder Eggs and Mozart Balls. I wanted to try a Kinder Egg, but being an American, I was afraid I would choke.

By the way, the "jokes" are referred to as "mottoes". The bit that goes <bang> is called a "snap".

I seriously doubt that it's as bad as Kat from Parkdale portends. Had security seriously thought you to be carrying something classified as "explosives" you wouldn't have flown that day, would have been detained and questioned, would have faced possible charges, and may have been placed on the permanent "no fly" list. Now, I'm sure your goods were, indeed, confiscated, and you may have even received a letter of some sort from the FAA. But I can't believe they would have thrown you in the "carried on explosives" bucket. A colleague of mine was arrested, detained for hours at the airport lock-up, threatened with charges, couldn't fly that day, and had his goods confiscated all for accidentally having a letter opener in his briefcase. No charges were ever filed, and he did receive a letter months later, inviting him to come pick up his "steak knife" if he so desired. Now, that's a lot closer to being a weapon/banned item than popping party favors. Are you absolutely sure you are on a list with folks who have tried to bring explosives on board? Did you fly that day? Have you flown since? If so, what kind of extra scrutiny did you/do you now receive? It sucks, but is it really as bad as you say? Maybe your item wasn't okay to take on board, but that was all?

The point of my post was that I would hate to have her go to all that trouble finding exactly what she wants and then find an empty suitcase at the end of the trail, which is what happened to me.

Michael....let me know when you're ready and I'll be glad to start a Kinder Egg thread. Did you know that last year alone, Customs and Border Protection seized 25,000 Kinder Eggs. I sleep so much better at night knowing that even though we can't keep drugs, guns, illegals and terrorists from coming over the border, .... we are safe from chocolate stuffed with a non-nutritive object. Quelle horreur!

I was just going to ask what a kinder egg was. Thanks for clearing that up!

You know, it's an egg that is kinder, and gentler..... I don't suppose Ken will be bringing any Kinder Eggs when he makes his next visit to the ETBD stoe in Edmonds!!

In case anyone is still looking, I saw some by Caspari at the Barnes and Noble near my home. Online there are quite a few designs http://www.casparionline.com/Christmas-Crackers/
Might cheer up my table as well.

Costco sells the Tom Smith Christmas Crackers which are the the BEST ones. Thick paper hats, corny jokes and nice toys made out of metal. Ive been buying them there for years and they are the best ones.

Nancy was right about Target. I thought that Christmas Crackers were an exclusive thing, available only in more cultured Europe. Then last night at Target, I noticed an entire end cap full of different variety packs of Christmas Crackers. But that's not all...they also had several variety packs of New Year's Crackers as well. They all looked like something one might buy at Krazy Larry's Fireworks Emporium in Missouri, so I'm not sure they would exude a lot of traditional European Christmas cheer. But if you're dying to have some Christmas Crackers, there you go.

The real reason Kinder Eggs are banned in the US is the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938. This Act prohibits the embedding of non-food items completely enclosed inside food items, unless the non-edible part has a functioning value. For example a lollipop or popsicle stick is not edible but is a useful handle. This Act was originally put into place to prevent the addition of hazardous items to processed food and has never been changed. http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cms_ia/importalert_107.html

I ordered the fill-them-yourself crackers from Christmas Crackers USA on Monday and they arrived this morning. They are partially filled, I get to add my own surprise, then add the snapper. Fortunately they came with directions. Now I can customize the cracker for each family member. My unemployed grown children might get a lump of coal, I will proably find a nice piece of jewellery in mine. They were sold out of the best designs so you really have to order early.

You can blame the Consumer Product Safety Commission on the crackdown on Kinder Eggs at the border: http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml06/06140.html