Guest Post - Gillian from The Glad Blog...

In the last few years I've seen many of my friends visit or move to/from London, and then return with boocoodles of goodies including some amazing chocolates and a few other things that were beautiful but mysterious to this GA gal.  Luckily, Gillian (the super cool blogger friend who came up with the name MOXTOBERFEST!) is here today to talk about one of those mystery items...a traditional holiday paper product found atop the noggins of many British folks during the holiday season.  Are you intrigued?  Then let Gillian explain...

Hello all, I'm Gillian and I write the Glad Blog – a blog about being a British expat in the USA. I love to write about quirky differences between UK and American culture.

I'm here today to address a question that I often get as a Brit living in the USA: Why on Earth do Brits wear paper crowns at Christmas?

The answer is simple: It's traditional!

Americans often ask me about those funny paper crowns because of movies like Bridget Jones and Love Actually. And it dawned on me - if you don't know why then it probably looks very strange indeed.

In the UK, Christmas dinner isn't Christmas dinner without Christmas Crackers: Wrapped paper tubes filled with useless goodies - a cheap toy, a terrible joke, a paper hat and a tiny gunpowder snap. Everyone gets a cracker with their place setting to pull with a fellow diner before the Christmas turkey (yes, turkey) dinner comes out. After the snaps, cracks and bangs, the toys go flying across the dinner table, people recite the jokes and then don their tissue crown for the meal to begin.

The cracker itself hails from the 1900s, when a British candy maker wrapped his sweets in colored papers with tiny snaps inside.

The paper mottos and toys came later, emulating Chinese fortune cookies. The motto could be an interesting fact, a riddle, or a more commonly a joke. Psychologists recently researched the history of these festive funnies – they are scientifically designed to be terrible.

The jokes must be family friendly, non-offensive, and simple enough for kids. And when they're bad, families can join together to groan – a bad joke can bring a family together at Christmas just like a tense game of Monopoly can tear it apart. 

And that leaves the crown. This tissue trinket could be a nod to Christ, the Three Kings, or to the British Monarchy. But it could also be a reference to an ancient medieval Christmas tradition: The Lord of Misrule, a jolly jester type, appointed to be in charge of the festive revelries. The whole tradition of the cracker is just a silly bit of revelry.

It's so traditional in the UK it's almost automatic, although one surly teenager or balding uncle will always complain about the silliness. Those paper hats are not very flattering – but it always makes for hilarious photo opps when someone falls asleep after dinner with a crooked paper crown perched on their head.

This year, as I'm in the USA for Christmas, I'm not sure we'll be having crackers. I have found a place online that sells the gunpowder snaps, and with a few loo rolls and a bit of tissue it's not hard to create home-made crackers. They're just not as common here, although I don't know why. Maybe y'all are too fashion conscious to wear a silly paper hat?

I'll leave you with that to ponder, along with one final question: In the UK, what takes place at the end of Christmas dinner?*

Thanks to Grits and Moxie for the chance to guest post, and if you'd like to read more quirky transatlantic observations, please do pop by and say hello!

*The answer is … The letter R (groan). 

I just loved this story and, to be honest, I love the idea of telling silly jokes all day.  My Dad is the king of stuff like this!

Thanks to Gillian and all the other guest bloggers - here & here - that are visiting the blog this week.  Please be sure to stop by at their blogs and tell them 'hi', eh?