Chiefly British def - setting off a firecracker, or "Christmas Cracker". Christmas crackers are a traditional Christmas favorite in the UK. The Christmas Crackers are short cardboard tubes wrapped in colourful paper. There is normally a Cracker next to each plate on the Christmas dinner table. When the crackers are pulled - with a bang! - a colourful party hat, a toy or gift and a festive joke falls out.
"Sirius had not contacted Harry at all ... he did not like to think of Sirius alone in his mother's old house, perhaps pulling a lonely cracker (
pull a cracker) with Kreacher."
J.K. Rowling.Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. New York. Arthur A. Levine books (Scholastics). 2003
Buy a
pull a cracker
mug!