A YouTuber has named the nine biggest culture shocks that she encountered when she experienced Christmas in the UK as an American. Kalyn, a US expat who's been living in the UK for nearly 10 years, posts her travel-themed videos on the Girl Gone London YouTube channel, covering everything from US vs UK comparisons to British cooking.
In a video titled '9 Ways British Christmas Was a Huge Culture Shock (to an American)', Kalyn dived into some of the biggest surprises she experienced when enjoying Christmas in the UK, and it would appear that the humble cracker caused some confusion.
Kalyn said: "Americans would think of a Christmas cracker as a type of cracker that you eat at Christmas; something like this with butter or jam or whatever you want to put on it. "But Christmas crackers in the UK are not meant to be consumed. They are this thing and you crack them open on Christmas Day and there's some sort of little trinket inside, which is not anything of importance; mostly some sort of like junk toy. But there are also typically either games or jokes that you can go around the table and share.".
She went on to explain that the thing that confused her the most about crackers is that she feels like every family has a different way of practising the tradition. After pointing out that people not only pull their crackers as a pair but also alone and by crossing arms and jointly pulling them, Kalyn added: "I feel like everyone has their own cracker-opening technique.
