The French version of a cracker
My childhood Christmas dinners involved roast turkey and hot plum pudding (sometimes on 40+°C days) in Australia, and they always started with the Christmas cracker. You know, those bits of paper or foil with a ‘party’ crown (a thin paper hat that often tore before you stuck it on your head) and a ‘toy’ (eg: a plastic ring in almost orange-coloured gold; a measuring tape; a leapfrog if you were lucky) inside.
Who doesn’t have a photo of their family all looking bored and embarrassed, eating their roast dinner with a paper crown on their head? Actually, French families don’t. Christmas crackers don’t seem to exist in France, but they do have Christmas bonbons. Yes, chocolate: so much better than a paper hat! But just when you’re thinking it’s a win-win situation, think again. The bonbons share something in common with the crackers: they contain a dodgy joke that just isn’t funny. Safe for all the family, here are just two of the typically corny jokes:
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This year’s crackers were exceptional. We had an even number of people (eight) and only four different jokes, each appearing twice. I’m almost tempted to write and complain to the manufacturer..
Worse; the night before I’d commented to my brother’s fiancée something like: The best cracker joke is one like “How do you get two whales in a Mini?” Because there are two acceptable answers, so even if there is a smart alec that announces the answer, you still have an a^nswer in reserve. The answers a) one in the front, and one in the back. or b) down the M4 and across the Severn bridge.
The “high quality” crackers opted for answer b). Too much of a coincidence for my liking…
I have seen far worse crackers in papillottes! 🙂
Ooh, is ‘papillottes’ the name of the Christmas bonbons? They are so tasty.
Yes! OOpps, only one “T”: papillotes.