Has anyone found some crackers that are actually good?

[Rooobs]

And I don't necessarily mean luxury £££ golden picture frame type crackers, but crackers where the gift is actually alright/useful and not just crap for the bin?

No I haven't, but have you considered the crackers that you buy and add your own gift.

Amazon have some as an example, but I've seen them in real shops too, I just can't remember which ones off the top of my head!

You could buy some nice chocolates to put in them, or some costume jewelry, a lottery ticket, keyrings. Well anything at all that you fancy.

ooh, that's nice, I'll have a look, thanks!

I think even the expensive ones have crap tbh: it's just mock gold plated crap.

Paperchase do tiny ones with little charms inside, which are okay if you have any little girls around as they will happily collect all of the charms.

Otherwise, I agree with either getting those fill your own ones, or even just doing tiny table presents instead.

Oxfam have lovely sets of make your own crackers. 6 for £3.99.

We often do buy fill your own ones and add some kind of little post-dinner game - last year it was balloon modelling so each cracker got a small handful of balloons and a photocopy of the instructions. Great fun!

Lakeland also has some with a set of whistles - each whistle has a different note and one guest "conducts" the others in playing well known Christmas tunes... quite a giggle after a few glasses of wine

My parents used to get super-cheap poundshop crackers and push nice things in through one end.

The whistle ones are hilarious. Think they're available at Hawkins Bazaar too.

I've bought racing sprout crackers from Tesco, thought it would keep the children amused!

Not quite a gift but Sainsburys have some with Cluedo, Monopoly or Twister in. They're reduced at the minute to about £7 too.

I tend to do 'fill your own' when I care, or super-cheap when I don't (it's just a gesture really...), but we had the 'Racing Reindeer' type ones one year - a hit with the kids and the grown ups and some of the reindeers are still going strong!!

We've had the racing ones before which went down quite well. This year I've bought fill your own ones from John Lewis. I like the idea of lottery tickets!

so fill your own and whistles are looking popular!

maybe whistles as there's a few wannabe musicians amongst us

I was going to say whistles too, particularly if you have a large group round the table. Otherwise some people will have to double up, though that would also have potential for humorous chaos. I was looking and looking for a set of whistles on ebay (thinking some tightwad might try to flog last year's) because they're about £13 on Lakeland and I thought I could fill my own crackers. But there are ebay sellers selling the exact same crackers for a lot less

There's a good fill-yer-own-crackers thread on this board at the moment.