Christmas cracker tradition of wearing festive hats is believed to date back to Roman times and the Saturnalia celebrations, which also involved decorative headgear. Christmas crackers are also associated with Knut's parties, held in Sweden at the end of the Christmas season. The "Oxford English Dictionary" records the use of "cracker bonbons" and the pulling of "crackers" from 1847. Tradition tells of how Tom Smith of London invented crackers in 1847. He created the crackers as a development of his bon-bon sweets, which he sold in a twist of paper (the origins of the traditional sweet-wrapper). As sales of bon-bons slumped, Smith
Tom Smith (playwright) Tom Smith (playwright) Tom Smith (born in 1969 in Rochelle, Illinois) is an American playwright, theatre director, and professor of theatre arts. Originally trained as an improvisational comedian, Smith founded Walla Walla TheatreSports in 1988. Smith's published plays include "Drinking Habits", "Drinking Habits 2: Caught in the Act", "The Odyssey", "The Pathmaker", "A Christmas Carol", "Dangerous" (a contemporary gay treatment of Les Liaisons Dangereuses), "Gray", and "Marguerita's Secret Diary" in addition to edited versions of "Much Ado About Nothing", "The Comedy of Errors", "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" and "Love's Labours Lost". Additionally, he has many plays published by YouthPLAYS,