All over Britain on Christmas Day, families can be found sitting around their dining tables enjoying a traditional lunch of roast turkey with all the trimmings - and all, regardless of age, wearing coloured paper hats. It is rumoured that even the Queen wears her paper hat over lunch!

圣誕節(jié)當天，全英國的家庭都會坐在餐桌前，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戴紙帽子哦!

So why this quaint tradition? Where do these paper hats come from? The answer is the Christmas Cracker.

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

A Christmas Cracker is a cardboard paper tube, wrapped in brightly coloured paper and twisted at both ends. There is a banger inside the cracker, two strips of chemically impregnated paper that react with friction so that when the cracker is pulled apart by two people, 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(fā)生摩擦，發(fā)出“嘣”的響聲。

Inside the cracker there is a paper crown made from tissue paper, 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 to Victorian times when in the early 1850s, London confectioner Tom Smith started adding a motto to his sugared almond bon-bons which he 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. The cracker was soon adopted as a traditional festive custom and today virtually every household has at least one box of crackers to pull over 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(jié) 的傳統(tǒng)習俗?，F(xiàn)在，所有的英國家庭至少都會準備一盒拉炮留到圣誕節(jié)時來拉響。