Christmas crackers

[Frostytiger87]

Hi where are you buying your Christmas crackers this year all the ones I’ve seen have rubbish in them . Any recommendations please ?
I used buy mine in Debenhams

Just buy cheap ones and fill them yourself... really they are all so expensive and all filled with crap now a days.

We have just got some from John Lewis, half price at the moment. They have some sort of fairground game in them. Last year's have origami which was fun. Oxfam do some nice plastic free ones. We've filled our own in the past too, my tip is not to put heavy chocolates in as they are likely to be flung around the room.

I either fill my own or get musical ones where you each get a note and play a song together. We had magic trick ones one year which were amazing. We had one with clockwork penguins and a racing grid one year but although it sounds fun it wasn't great.

I fill my own, bought two boxes from Amazon last year so have some left. I’d much rather put stuff in that will be used.

What sort of things do you put in them please ? I’m hopeless 🙈

@Frostytiger87 this year I put mini Gonk Christmas decorations and a Lindor chocolate in mine. Previous years I’ve put Christmas decorations, perfume samples, scented tea lights, nice chocolates. When my kids were little it was things like glow stick bracelets, bubbles, novelty erasers, stationary.

Thankyou so much what lovely ideas 🎄

I only started my own last year and put ink stamps in them, this year Im thinking monster finger puppets but mine are mostly kids.

Magic fish are fun for all ages. Little ones generally love stickers. Mini decorations go down well too.

I’ve filled crackers with
Shower gel minis
Hand cream
Nail varnish
Personalised bottle openers
Alcohol miniatures
Lip balm
Earrings
Small colouring pencils
Hair bobbles
Hair slides
Pillow Spray
The crackers I have are fairly long so I’m going to measure and see if I can fit tins of cocktails and pre mixed gin and tonic in.
I usually put a scratch card and a Lindt chocolate in as well.

I buy fill-your-own ones from Hobbycraft and fill them with a mini Lindt chocolate bear and a scratch card. The kit comes with a paper hat and a joke for each cracker

I always thought the whole point of crackers was the daft tat inside to laugh at. The more expensive ones just have more expensive tat IMO, though to be fair one thing I once kept was a set of mini screwdrivers, which do come in handy once in a blue moon.

One more memorable piece of plastic tat was a set of vampire fangs, which went down very well with younger family - but of course they all wanted it.

As for chocolates inside, we always have more than enough of those at Christmas anyway.

There's some nice ones in Waitrose, they contain pastry cutters

The problem is its the EXACT same pointless tat every single year in every cracker.

I have a junk draw FULL of nail clippers, tiny screwdrivers, micro notebooks, those stupid metal puzzles with no instructions, random tiddlywink frogs etc... I have never got something new and exciting in a xmas cracker, at least making my own my kids get something fresh and exciting.

I always fill my own that I buy from Etsy. This year the men are all getting socks and the women Christmassy earrings. Maybe slightly sexist but we have a couple of guests I don’t know very well so it was just easier.
Usually I tailor the present to the specific person.

I got RSPB crackers that have chocolates in them - there are other choices like wildflower seed and other non edibles. They're pricey but we only need one box