Loser? Winner?
IME, when it comes to the contents of Christmas crackers "winners" and "losers" are pretty well indistinguishable.
Scrooges rejoice! Beancounters find formula for perfect Xmas party
If you’re planning a Christmas party and you’re the sort of miserly Scrooge type that doesn’t want to waste any money on excess Christmas crackers, science has got you covered. A trio of those party-loving statisticians has worked out the formula for the optimum number of crackers for a party to ensure that everyone wins one …
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Thursday 18th December 2014 07:48 GMT Anonymous Coward
I'm no statistician but....
I'm pretty sure the minimum number of crackers for "n" guests to get a gift is "n" at least in our household it is.
Is this competive cracker pulling an American thing?
Although playing swapsies to get rid of the plastic hair-grip you "won" can get competitive I admint.
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Thursday 18th December 2014 15:09 GMT Eddy Ito
Re: I'm no statistician but....
Funny, on the US side of the pond crackers get put out on a serving plate with cheese, pâté and/or fruit. Typically they crackers are spread out so it's easy enough to pick one off the top with no need to pull it. Although I have seen a few folks plowing through the entire plate as quickly as possible.
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Monday 22nd December 2014 13:21 GMT Michael Wojcik
Re: I'm no statistician but....
Is this competive cracker pulling an American thing?
The only people in the US I've ever seen with Christmas crackers are my own family. You can find them in some import stores here (eg World Market), but they're far from common.
And we always just doled them out to each guest. I hadn't heard of competitive cracker pulling until my brother's wife, who's English, mentioned it. So no, not an American thing.
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Thursday 18th December 2014 08:30 GMT xyz
No names but....
In the wacky world of corporate greasy poling, the company my GF works for sent out an instruction to "leverage" Christmas and attendance at the party was mandatory for morale purposes.
Imagine being married to/going out with the control freak twonk that thought that up Yup, thar be true psychos swimming in the corporate ocean.
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Thursday 18th December 2014 12:40 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: No names but....
But in a yuletide celebratory scenario such as this, one has to leverage the synergistic opportunities presented to the management team of the gathering of all the
droneshuman resource units in one location space. This can be bootstrapped as a valuable engagement and learning enviornment to build both excellent intra-team and inter-departmental communication and understanding. Adding in an extra management protocol of cracker gamification, intensifies the strategic impact for only a small extra resource input.[I feel soiled now]
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Friday 19th December 2014 11:17 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: No names but....
+1 upvote but you failed to mention "shareholder value"
It has come to our attention at I ain't Spatacus that a few of our customers may have been affected by an omission from our previous statement. Mistakes may have been made and we would like to offer our apologies to those few people who may have been affected. I would like to assure all stakeholders that lessons have been learned, and that these learnings will be ongoing into the future in order to ensure that such problems cannot occur again. Thus increasing shareholder value and customer takeaway.
[Better? Bleurgh!]
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Thursday 18th December 2014 12:03 GMT knightred
What the sam hell is cracker pulling?
I rarely post, but I'm so culturally confused by this idea of "cracker pulling" I had to post to ask what the hell is going on at these parties?
I seriously thought the story was about the number of crackers a host should provide for a Christmas party. A scientific study, I'm quite sure some miser office manager was hoping would definitely tell them whether to buy 2 or 3 boxes of crackers, saving the company a staggering $1.50 this year!
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Thursday 18th December 2014 12:44 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: What the sam hell is cracker pulling?
After consuming sufficient alcohol to be able to break the social bonds, but not so much as to be unable to excercise judgement, if one manages to leave the pub with a sexually attractive person one didn't arrive with - one is said to have "pulled a cracker".
I wasn't aware that they were delived to Christmas parties in boxes before, but our laws are becoming ever more liberal, so I'm not entirely surprised.
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Thursday 18th December 2014 12:31 GMT Amorous Cowherder
To bugger up your formula...
Add one child under 10 - Said child will insist, bride, whinge and generally annoy all adults into giving the child ALL the cack prizes from whatever box of naff crackers you bought this year.
For even more fun...
Bring 2 children under 10 into the mix - 2 children will fight over the shite toys that fell from crackers and in general cause all adults to moan and shout and finally confiscate shite toys so that, "If that's the way it's going to be, I'll bin them all and nobody wins any!"
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Friday 19th December 2014 11:21 GMT Sheep!
It's all a bit crackers...
This is your cracker, whatever comes out (whomever gets the big end) is yours, and this is your cracker, same rules apply. One cracker per person is all that's needed. How is this difficult? Do people REALLY get competitive over xmas crackers and want to keep everything they "win"? Just how sad an xmas are you going to have? I'm 44 now and I have never once been in an environment where the pulling of crackers was competitive, quite sure I wouldn't want to be around people for whom it was either - "No you can't have a Christmas hat because I won them both", how sad.
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Friday 19th December 2014 11:51 GMT Anonymous Coward
How dumb/thick/stupid?
Didn't win a prize!!!!!!!! Shame.
Strategy - wait until most guests have left then pick up all the unwanted plastic frogs, hair clips, nail clippers, deformed dice, spinning tops.
Remember to take a big bag with you to hold them all.
Who in their right mind thinks the innards of a cracker are so badly wanted. Dumbos.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
