People are only just realising what Christmas crackers are called in Australia

16 December 2023 , 08:00

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Christmas crackers are a staple part of Christmas (stock photo) (Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Pulling open a Christmas cracker is a key part of the Christmas Day festivities for many families in the UK, and while other countries enjoy the little cardboard toys, they don't all call them the same thing.

And if you've ever spoken to an Australian person about what their Christmas Day looks like, or if you've ever spent the festive period down under, then you might know that they have a much cuter name for the cardboard tubes that make a bang when you pull them open. If you don't know what we're talking about then strap yourself in because it's seriously adorable - they call them bon bons.

Christmas crackers and bon bons are the same thing in practice - they're both made out of cardboard and contain a bad festive-themed joke, a tissue paper crown, and some kind of cheap and small plastic novelty item that usually takes the form of either a toy or a handy item such as a comb or pencil sharpener.

But why are they called bon bons in Australia? Well, apparently it's all to do with how Christmas crackers came into existence in the first place. According to Australian Christmas cracker website, Crackers for Bon bons, the earliest Christmas crackers were actually sweets rather than cardboard, and they were introducted in Australia in 1867.

At the time, they took the name bon bons from the French sugary confection of the same name. If you've ever enjoyed the chewy goodness of a strawberry bon bon then you'll know exactly the sort of sweets we mean. The Christmas bon bons were made with sugar, cream of tartar, and peppermint oil.

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They were then wrapped in paper to look like a cracker, with the ends glued together. The original idea for the sweets was to give them away to children as gifts, and as time went on, the idea behind the bon bon evolved and they eventually became the crackers we know today - but Australia decided to stick with the original name.

Australian linguist Lauren Gawne, who runs the Superlinguo blog, also spoke about bon bons in 2016 when she made a blog post discussing the origins of the word and said: "They were always bon bons when I was growing up in Australia, but cracker does seem to be more common here in the UK."

Lauren also pointed out that in the US, Christmas crackers are not part of the festive traditions at all, but noted that Canada does follow the tradition, although they also refer to them as crackers rather than bon bons.

Zahna Eklund