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(jié)當(dāng)天，全英國的家庭都會(huì)坐在餐桌前，吃一頓傳統(tǒng)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(huì)在頭上戴一頂彩色紙做成的紙帽子。據(jù)說，就連伊莉莎白女王也會(huì)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(huì)有這個(gè)古怪的傳統(tǒng)呢？戴紙帽子的傳統(tǒng)來源于哪里？答案就在另一項(xiàng)圣誕傳統(tǒng)活動(dòng)——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(huì)有一個(gè)爆竹，當(dāng)兩個(gè)人拉動(dòng)拉炮兩端時(shí)，拉炮里的兩條浸漬紙就會(huì)發(fā)生摩擦，發(fā)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(huì)裝有紙做的皇冠、寫在紙上的名言或笑話，還會(huì)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(tǒng)的歷史可以追溯到維多利亞時(shí)期，約在19世紀(jì)50年代早期，倫敦的一個(gè)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(jì)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(jié)的傳統(tǒng)習(xí)俗。現(xiàn)在，所有的英國家庭至少都會(huì)準(zhǔn)備一盒拉炮留到圣誕節(jié)時(shí)來拉響。

（來源：新浪博客）