Christmas Crackers (Only Fools and Horses) Christmas Crackers (Only Fools and Horses) "Christmas Crackers" is the first Christmas special episode of the BBC sit-com, "Only Fools and Horses", first screened on 28 December 1981, three days after Christmas. It is the first episode to run over 30 minutes, but not the first feature-length. It's Christmas Day and Grandad is cooking the dinner while Rodney is reading a book on body language which Mickey Pearce has lent him. Del returns and gives Grandad a Christmas present (a £20 note), however Grandad tells Del that he has not got him a present this year as "I don't believe
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