Meet the Merry Christmas Cracker Elves @ GillianCrackers!

Here is our merry band of Christmas Cracker Elves at GillianCrackers.

We work very hard to make great crackers and lots of family fun for YOU
but we also love to laugh and play - and even sing!

 

 

Christmas Crackers at GillianCrackers for the 2014 Holiday Season

Christmas Crackers

The 2014 Christmas Crackers Line-Up Page

Includes Hanukkah, Thanksgiving and New Year 2015!

Every Cracker is handmade
by our fun-loving Christmas Cracker Elves!

Christmas Cracker and Card history at the Victoria and Albert Museum

If there is one thing this Cracker Elf is determined to do before too long, it is to visit the Victoria and Albert Museum in Britain.  I would most specially love to see their historical Christmas cracker collection. Here are a few items shown on their website:

Mottoes and Jokes
Click images to visit the Victoria and Albert Museum Online.

Tom Smith’s Christmas crackers “Bank of Love”
from the Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Cracker contents, such as paper hats and toys 

from the Victoria and Albert Museum, London

"This card is a reproduction of an 1843 card, commissioned by Sir Henry Cole, the Museum’s first director. It combines two traditional Christmas themes. The central illustration shows three generations of a family raising a toast to the recipient of the card, and the outer, less colourful images show acts of charity, and giving to the poor."

....

Historical Christmas Cracker Making film footage

Two more historical cracker-making film footages
I think you might enjoy.

From 1933 "The Gentle Christmas Cracker"

And, from 1950,  "Xmas Crackers"

View at British Pathe

Our Annual Christmas Cracker Reveal & Sale is on NOW!

Our Annual Christmas Cracker Reveal & Sale 

is on now until June 20th . 

Don't miss it.
We have so many lovely treats for you this year!

Click HERE to enter the SALE SITE

Christmas Crackers Advert - Nerlich Catalogue, 1939

These crackers were shown in the Nerlich Catalogue in 1939.
I would think this was the end of the really wonderful crackers. Although they do still have a remnant of elegance about them, the contents clearly show the beginning of mass production with ads emphasizing the 'look' rather than the 'content' of the crackers. So.. it was about HERE when the problems began! :)

If you look in the right hand column of this blog you will see some pages listed. One of them is for posting the annual Elf-Food Prep recipes which I will be adding soon. Feel free to share the recipes and give them a try!  The first ones will my favourite autumn muffins.

Cheers Everyone

♥♥

from your Chief Cracker Elf,

Gillian

Charles Dickens' Christmas Cracker Review

Charles Dickens did so much to capture and shape the Victorian Christmas spirit and continues to this very day to influence the modern holiday celebration through his Christmas-themed novels and, in particularly, the best-known and most-loved one of all - "The Christmas Carol".

In 1898, Dickens' wrote the following review of the then most popular trend of Christmas crackers. It is rather long and flowery so I am paraphrasing for you here but, if interested, please do read the full account following.

You frequently hear me moaning about how awful (in my opinion) the commercial crackers have been for years now - pretty on the outside but empty of anything except poor jokes, plain hats and plastic or metal gizmos.  Dickens, in his time which was the heyday of crackers, had the opposite to say noting how improved crackers had become - no longer merely candy and mottoes wrapped in twists of paper with uncertain snaps (sometimes these used to set tablecloths on fire!):  "But the cracker of other days was but a small affair after all, wrapped up in what seemed like scraps of coloured wall-paper. It often missed fire, and there was nothing within but a bonbon - "pas trop bon " - and a scrap of doggrel...".  It seems we have come full circle?!

Ever the ladies' man, Dickens described the cracker work force: " ... a throng of girls, nicely dressed, and by no means wanting in personal attractions, who are all busily making crackers."

The working conditions sound a bit more idealized than the GillianCrackers Workshop: " It is a charming employment for young women, this making of crackers - everything is clean, and dainty, and pretty about them; there are no noxious fumes or extremes of temperature [my elf staff would disagree with that!]to contend with; and it is a labour light and pleasant, to which the nimble fingers alone are wedded, and which leaves the mind free and unruffled"  Well, I guess maybe...

Then Dickens quotes cracker-maker Tom Smith:  "...there is an immensity of detail about this business". Yes, there are cares upon cares in catering for the amusement of a volatile public - to keep up the supply of novelties and devise always something fresh and taking to pass within the narrow round of a Christmas cracker".  Yes, well now, that sounds a bit more like it. Both are true - 'a labour light' and 'the immensity of detail with cares upon cares'!

My favourite phrase Dickens offered was in his description of the Tom Smith workplace as "this factory of fairy trinkets".  How lovely!
And the most inspiring was the description of the cracker contents: "...all the distinguished head-gear of the British army... the lancer's complicated cap, the helmet and nodding plume of the gold dragoon. For young gamesters there are cards and dice, tops that spin and sing, and little toys of every description. It would be easier, indeed, to set forth what is not, than what is to be found in these wonderful [toy] storerooms". And: "... a doctor's hood and gown... a jester's cap and bells; or a terrier pup, in china; or a balloon, or Professor Baldwin's latest parachute..."  Can you imagine the fun and anticipation of opening crackers such as these?!

So intrinsic were crackers to the Victorian Christmas celebration that advertising for them was found everywhere. Dickens described this: " announced on every hoarding, on the walls of railways stations, in the corridors of hotels and public buildings. Wherever you go you can hardly fail to meet with a reminder of the coming glories of [Christmas] crackers". Oh, don't I wish this were still true though Google, Bing & Yahoo are surely doing their bit in this regard!

I have for years now been offering crackers as 'ice-breakers' at family reunions and in places where people who don't know one another well are meeting for long periods of time - intense periods of conferencing, for instance. Dickens describes this: "...where the box of crackers infuses a new spirit into the assemblage."  Thank you Mr. Dickens - May I borrow that line?

In closing he says, "Such pleasure as the cracker may bring us, is altogether pure and unalloyed, and it may be that you will preserve some little toy or trinket as a souvenir of some of the happiest moments of your life."

Reference:  "All The Year Round"
Conducted by Charles Dickens
December 15, 1898

Ref:  "All the Year Round" found on Google Books"

This publication edited by Charles Dickens until his death in 1870
was then carried on by his son, Charles Dickens, Jr, until 1988 or possibly even until 1895. It is unclear, but this cracker article above is thought to be written by Dickens, Sr. and published posthumously.

Click on the READ MORE button below to the left
to view the remainder of this article.  ♥♥

Eaton's Christmas Cracker Ad 1915

Here is an extensive Christmas cracker ad from the old Timothy Eaton's Dept Store. 15 cents to $1.50 per box? Well, admittedly prices have gone up in 100 years! Notice the heading, "Observe the Prices"!

It's too bad the crackers here weren't presented with better descriptive text in the ad copy but I do like some of the design titles; the box of puzzle crackers being called: "The Jolly Jokers Crackers", for instance. Mmmmm  could I borrow that name... The cracker pictured in the ad is quite pretty and festive - I remember a less fancy version of the fluted edges being widely available even in the 1950's when crackers were often made with stretchy crepe paper.

As with GillianCrackers  some selections included musical toys. The remembrance crackers are a bit of a mystery; they contain 'fancy luggage' - I have trouble packing handbells into tubes - not sure how packing luggage in would go! "Fancy toy jewels" seemed to be a common component of many of the early cracker varieties.

An interesting bit of ephemera and a welcome addition to this blog.

Ref:  http://oldfashionedholidays.wordpress.com/2010/11/24/old-fashioned-christmas-crackers-19151916-canadian-old-fashioned-holidays/

Caley's Christmas Crackers in an Eaton's box
Ref: http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/exhibitions/cpm/catalog/cat2206be.shtml#1233465

Family Cracker Image from the cover of an 1895 London Illustrated News

Here is a fun cover image from an 1895 edition of the London Illustrated News

of a family opening a box of Tom Smith's Crackers.
Cheers Everyone
♥♥
from your Chief Cracker Elf,
Gillian

Victorian Christmas Cracker Post Card

Victorian Christmas Post Card
Not sure of the date on the cancellation stamp?
Interesting combination of characters!

Ref:  http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/an-interview-with-antique-christmas-decorations-collector-dolph-gotelli/

Here is an updated version with German holiday greeting: 

"froehliche - weihnachten" - "Jolly Christmas"

Illustration by Paul Bommer

Ref:  http://spitalfieldslife.com/2011/12/18/18th-december-christmas-cracker/

♥♥

from your Chief Cracker Elf,

Gillian

Children with Christmas crackers & fancy paper hats - 1908

Look at the wonderful hats that USED to be packed into crackers!
I have so MUCH still to learn about cracker making!



"Christmas Joys for Girls and Boys", A Victorian Christmas book for children, printed in Bavaria by Ernest Nister Condon,
and released in America by E.P. Dutton and Company, New York, around 1908.

REF:  http://tracystoys.blogspot.ca/2010/12/antique-childrens-christmas-book.html

Good Night, All!

♥♥

from your Chief Cracker Elf,

Gillian

Christmas Cracker Hats / Cracker Crowns - by the thousands!

Thousands of holiday paper hats
waiting to be cello-packed with Activity packs.

Every holiday season thousands and thousands of paper hats (some people know them better as "crowns") are handmade for our Christmas crackers - each one involving myriad steps to complete.

The hats are cut down from 20 x 30" pieces of decorative tissue, folded several times before cutting out the hat shapes with a long, sharp utility knife. Each strip is then unfolded, glued, dried, refolded and then finally trimmed. It takes 4-6 full work weeks each year to make enough hats just for the Thanksgiving and holiday season. I also make them for birthdays, weddings, Easter, Valentines, Halloween and a host of other occasions.

It may be a l-o-n-g job but it is also a soothing one! The repeating rhythm gives me a little chance to think about other jobs - what supplies need sourcing, what needs to be added to the activity sheets, how to tweak the advertising campaign. During the winter and early spring, I start saving up old movies and TV series on my  PVR and play them back on the small desk TV as I cut, fold and glue away. I go through the entire West Wing series (one of my all-time favourite TV shows at least once each season while cracker-making!). While working I often imagine folks putting the little paper hats on their heads and how soon it will be before they fall off again! I imagine the kids giggling and the older folks remembering past Christmases and I can smell the turkey and cranberry sauce. This isn't just sales schmaltz - I really do feel all these wonderful things and it's all the better because some of my customers have been with me so long that I can see individual faces and connect the hats with their family members - including all the cats and dogs. And to think I get paid to do this!  :)

Cheers Everyone
♥♥
from your Chief Cracker Elf,
Gillian

Christmas & Solstice

Thanksgiving

Batger & Co, Christmas Cracker Mfr, 1748

Batger & Co Christmas Cracker Manufacturer

In recalling the history of the Christmas cracker, most people are familiar with the name of "Tom Smith" but many other large, creative businesses were involved in the design and manufacture of this Victorian treat - some of them located in Germany and elsewhere in Europe.

One British company named Batger and Co. sold a wide variety of crackers in highly decorated boxes (as did Tom Smith). Batger and Co. began shop in 1748 at f 566 Cable Street, London, E1. In 1947 they advertised their 75 years of experience in producing "Harlequin" style crackers.

The company's main factory at 566 Cable Street produced jams, bakery sundries and confectionary; best known products being 'Chinese Figs', 'Silmos Lollies', 'Jersey Caramels', and 'John Peel marmalade'. Their second factory manufactured 'Harlequin Christmas Crackers', and all forms of cake decorations for the bakery industry.  as well all manner of cake decorations. Their factory had its own wharf and shipped their raw materials along the Thames River. 

Both factories were badly damaged during air raids on the London Docks during the Second World War so eventually new premises were found at Clapham.

Ref:  http://www.mawer.clara.net/batger.html

Cheers Everyone!
♥♥
from your Chief Cracker Elf,
Gillian