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 Rob Smith of designer Gianni Versace by serial killer Andrew Cunanan. Smith lives with his partner Ben Stephenson, the former Controller of BBC Drama Commissioning. Tom Rob Smith Tom Rob Smith (born 1979) is an English writer. The son of a Swedish mother and an English father, both antiques dealers, Smith was born and raised in South London. He went to school at Dulwich College between the years of 1987 and 1997. Following his graduation from St John's College, Cambridge, in 2001, he received the Harper Wood Studentship for English Poetry and Literature and continued his Creative Writing studies for a year