All over Britain on Christmas Day, families can be found sittingaround their dining tables enjoying a traditional lunch of roastturkey with all the trimmings - and all, regardless of age, wearingcoloured paper hats. It is rumoured that even the Queen wears herpaper hat over lunch!

圣誕節當天，全英國的家庭都會坐在餐桌前，吃一頓傳統的圣誕大餐，塞滿了各種餡料的烤火雞。無論年齡老幼，所有人都會在頭上戴一頂彩色紙做成的紙帽子。據說，就連伊莉莎白女王也會戴紙帽子哦！

So why this quaint tradition? Where do these paper hats comefrom? The answer is the Christmas Cracker。

那為什么會有這個古怪的傳統呢？戴紙帽子的傳統來源于哪里？答案就在另一項圣誕傳統活動——圣誕拉炮！

A Christmas Cracker is a cardboard paper tube, wrapped inbrightly coloured paper and twisted at both ends. There is a bangerinside the cracker, two strips of chemically impregnated paper thatreact with friction so that when the cracker is pulled apart by twopeople, the cracker makes a bang。

圣誕拉炮是用硬紙板做的紙筒，再用色彩鮮艷的彩紙包裹在外面，兩端擰緊。在拉炮里會有一個爆竹，當兩個人拉動拉炮兩端時，拉炮里的兩條浸漬紙就會發生摩擦，發出“嘣”的響聲。

Inside the cracker there is a paper crown made from tissuepaper, a motto or joke on a slip of paper and a little gift。

拉炮里會裝有紙做的皇冠、寫在紙上的名言或笑話，還會有一些小禮物。

Christmas crackers are a British tradition dating back toVictorian times when in the early 1850s, London confectioner TomSmith started adding a motto to his sugared almond bon-bons whichhe sold wrapped in a twisted paper package。

圣誕拉炮成為英國傳統的歷史可以追溯到維多利亞時期，約在19世紀50年代早期，倫敦的一個糖果商湯姆?史密斯把寫有名言的紙片放在了他售賣的糖果包裝里，包裝方式就是在糖果外用紙將兩頭擰緊。

The paper hat was added to the cracker in the early 1900s. Thecracker was soon adopted as a traditional festive custom and todayvirtually every household has at least one box of crackers to pullover Christmas。

到了20世紀初，紙帽子也被放到了圣誕拉炮里。很快，拉炮就成了英國人過圣誕節的傳統習俗。現在，所有的英國家庭至少都會準備一盒拉炮留到圣誕節時來拉響。

（來源：新浪博客）