For some reason this reminds me of a quote from Blackadder’s Christmas Carol: 'Oh, dear. Ill-conceived love, I should warn you, is like a Christmas cracker: one massively disappointing bang, and the novelty soon wears off. ’
Yes, buy them every year. Which reminds me I haven’t got any yet; I’ll have to pick some up.
This is the first time I’ve ever heard of them.
Ah yeah we still all get selection boxes even though we’re all in our late 20’s/30’s.
Wow, I had no idea - I thought Christmas crackers were ubiquitous (born and live in England).
Nope, never pulled one.
After hearing about them, my mom went out and found a set in an import store. They were really pretty, and we were all impressed (my family is easily impressed, but it keeps us in a good mood). They seemed too nice just to randomly pull them apart, so we decided to keep them for a special occasion. This was probably 25 years ago, they’re still unpulled. We like to ease in to those furrurn traditions, dontcha know?
Every year, we have crackers. I’ve had them since I was a child, and I had the pleasure of introducing my American-born-and-raised wife to them. She thinks they’re a fun tradition.
I’m married to a man from Belfast, so yes, we’ve done crakers. But I wouldn’t have known about them if I hadn’t lived in a heavily Irish part of Boston.
I have a cousin who’s big on foreign holiday customs so we started doing Christmas crackers about ten years ago.
I like to have them when we are having a dinner party during the holiday season. I’ve either purchased them from a catalog or from a local store that sells British goods.
We usually pull Christmas crackers, but my father is from London. Even though we don’t celebrate the holidays with him anymore, a lot of the British trappings remain (for example, we eat parsnips and Yorkshire pudding).
I have to imagine that a lot of people do use Christmas crackers in the US, though; they had a ton of them at Costco, and this is Des Moines, hardly an immigrant hotspot.
Yep. He was in my bed til New Year’s. 
Actually, yeah. But since I don’t celebrate Christmas we pull them on New Year’s.
ETA: I have no connection to England- I don’t remember where I first found them, but they are pretty ubiquitous around here (Connecticut).
Canadian here - we always had them at Christmas supper, growing up - along with plum pudding.
Now my wife and I have them at Christmas in our house.
I do Christmas dinner for the family every year and always make sure we have crackers. This year I got them here. I did the fill-it-yourself version. In the past I’ve made my own from paper towel cylinders and wrapping paper. The hard part was finding the snaps.
And I just steamed the figgy pudding today. The dinner, however, will be our traditional baked country ham with pickled peach gelatin mold and various side dishes.
Every year until I moved to the US about 4 Xmases back. Never since
Yes, when I spent Christmas in Australia. I wonder if I can get some in New York.
OK, just did a little research. If any NYC Dopers are interested, you can buy Christmas crackers from http://www.myersofkeswick.com/Home.html I’m going to call in the morning and see if they have anymore in stock.
My late mother-in-law loved them, so we’ve been doing them for 30 years. I also saw some in Cost Plus.
Never heard of it until reading this.