Saturday, January 1, 2011

Those Things, Those Fabulous Things

It's another family tradition of ours to have holiday crackers on the table at this time of year. For those who may not be familiar, crackers are an English tradition; they are rolls of cardboard covered in colorful foil that is twisted at both ends. Each has a snap, a paper crown, a toy or novelty, and a joke of some kind inside. You open them a little like you break a wishbone: two people tug on either end until the snap pops and one person has the larger half with all the goodies inside.

By the end of any festive meal, everyone is wearing a crown, and some may have two or three on. My favorite part is the joke or riddle-- usually a terrible pun but occasionally an unfathomable British joke, for example, Q: What do ghosts wear on wet days? A: Khaghouls. Funny right? (Seriously-- comment if you get it and are willing to explain it to a dim witted Yank like myself.) Years ago, the crackers we used to get had the jokes in English, French, Spanish, and Italian, and trying to read and translate them was lots of fun and much hilarity always ensued.

Tonight's New Years Day dinner was the last cracker event of the season, but rather than be done with them entirely, I found this article on The Telegraph website: Top Ten Worst Cracker Jokes Ever. The jokes are only in English, but I think they are corny enough to get me through until next year.

5 comments:

  1. From the urban dictionary: a kagool is a waterproof top worn by hikers and sheep shaggers all over the united kingdom.

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  2. Exactly one year later and I got the same joke in my cracker. I googled "khaghoul" and this blog popped up! Thanks for clearing it up for me and my family, we were all very confused.

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  3. Almost a year later, I too googled khaghoul and we laughed our butts off at "sheep shaggers."

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  4. Live in the u.s. we bought some crackers with that joke, thank you for the blog question and thank you for explaining!

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  5. At a Suzy Boggus Christmas concert I Duluth, Georgia, she got this riddle in a cracker. Nobody understood it, including her. She finally said, "Must be the British spelling of 'galoshes.'" Nobody under 50 understood that, either.

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