[SueL]

Originally Posted by Deena J

This Arkansas girl thought the same thing!!!! LOL. That is a very kewl idea though. Wonder how my family would react to one, hmmmmm.....

LOL! I'm glad I wasn't the only daft American, Deena! I'm teasing about being "daft". We were simply "uniniated", but now we know. The standard gifts Caryl mentions remind me of what we might find at the bottom of a box of Cracker Jacks!

Originally Posted by CarylB

Whenever I've spent Christmas in the US I've always taken crackers with me .. and my US guests have loved them :) I've used the kits for years now, putting small gifts in hem. This year I shall be putting Loafdom silver in them .. much nicer than the plastic compasses and play "rings" that tend to be the standard gifts in the ready made ones these days :)

They're dead easy to make up as all the work has been done, save rolling the into a tube, fitting the cardboard "lugs" into the slots, squeezing them where the cut out bits are to make the cinched in ends .. just pop the hats, jokes and gift in before you squeeze the second end. Takes less than a minute a cracker, and the snap is usually already stuck to the inside. Then on Christmas day you hold one end, the person next to you grasps the other ... you both pull.. and BANG!! .. and the cracker pulls apart and out pop the hat, joke and gift :)

We used to make them with crepe paper, loo roll tubes in the centre, and two tubes, one twice the length of the other, having to twist the paper and fasten it .. lol .. but this is much easier :)

That sounds like a bit of work! Well worth the tradition, I'd say.

Give them a try .. and you'll find they become a part of your Christmas :) And you can always substitute a small toy or model for one of the gifts in the kids' ones and keep the necklace for yourself .. lol


That's definitely my plan, especially now that we can order the 8-pack.
Caryl

I don't know, Deena, but for me, things get old. Of course, that makes them "traditional", but I like to also try to keep things fresh and exciting, even if it's just changing the lights on the Christmas tree from one year to the next. And believe me, people notice, especially our little ones.

I am going to order the Crackers because of course the purchase will help the kids of The Painted Turtle, but I also think they sound like fun, and I think it's important for our kids (in my case, our grand-kids), to be aware that there are other ways of doing things - that what we do is not the be all and end all of things!

Something that's especially neat about this Christmas is that our 1 1/2 year old grandson, who is 1/4 British and who has lots of family in England, is spending this Christmas with his dad, our son, and this coincidentally will be our first year with the British tradition.


Thanks for sharing, Caryl!

Sue