Cheese And Crackers: 12 Jokes Of Christmas

I’m writing this on the shortest day of the year. Outside, the world is dark and blustery. Rain is whipping the outside of the house, but I’m snug in my armchair. The fire is crackling away beside me and the Christmas tree is twinkling in the corner in all its tacky glory. It’s half five in the evening, and I’m in my pyjamas having a brandy. Despite my extreme lack of tolerance for Irish winter weather (which is very silly, because I should really be used to it after 27 years), I find it very easy to be happy at Christmas time. The fact that my Christmas usually involves a lot of cheese sure doesn’t hurt.

Every family has different foodie traditions at Christmas, but ours always, ALWAYS includes a fully-loaded cheeseboard. Even in the run-up to the day itself, I seem to be surrounded by a lot of the good stuff; last Friday at our girly Christmas night, my friend Steph smeared a whole wheel of Brie with apricot jam, wrapped it snugly in puff pastry, and popped it in the oven until the centre melted into an oozy mess covered in a sticky sweet glaze. By the time she cut it open, I was already considering proposing to her. At last night’s Christmas bash in my mates’ house, another friend baked a Camembert and roasted some whole garlic, making me the happiest girl at the party.

So anyway, it’s four days till Christmas, and I’m here in my pyjamas trying to come up with some seasonal cheesiness, something witty and Christmassy and cheese-related to write about for your amusement, O Gentle Reader. In the glaring absence of anything resembling a lightbulb moment, I’ve decided that cheesy Christmas cracker jokes are the way forward. This may seem like I’m wriggling out of concocting a proper column idea (and if it does seem like that to you then you are, in fact, correct) but hey, if there were ever a week to be lazy, this is it. Plus, the whole cheese-and-crackers thang does make for a damn neat title, so I’m pretty chuffed about that.

Christmas crackers are a standard addition to any Irish Christmas. For any of you who aren’t familiar with them, they’re festively-decorated cardboard tubes which you offer to your neighbour at the dinner table. Each of you holds one end and pulls, and the cracker “pops” open loudly; whoever ends up holding the bigger piece wins the prizes inside. These always include a coloured paper crown, some sort of random toy/gadget/magic trick/weird curly plastic fish… and always, always at least one awful joke.

The kind of jokes found in a Christmas cracker are so truly terrible that you want to hate them but you can’t because they’re silly in a mildly-endearing sort of way, and their silliness is part of the annual Christmas fun. Or I’ve had too much brandy. Either way, I’m getting into the Christmas cracker spirit: Here are 12 of the cheesiest jokes I know/have found trawling through Google, one for each day of ye olde Christmas. Not only are they cheesy by nature, but they’re also about cheese so, y’know, don’t ever say I don’t do my research. The first one is vaguely holiday-themed. The others are not.

 What do you call cheese from Israel?

Cheeses of Nazareth.

Why was the cheese sad?

Because he was blue.

What’s orange and doesn’t belong to you?

Nacho cheese.

What cheese should you use to hide a horse?

Mascarpone.

How does a Welshman eat cheese?

Caerphilly

When does a cheese become invisible?

When it’s pasteurised.

How do you make sheeps’ milk cheese?

Ewes milk.

What happened after an explosion at a French cheese factory?

All that was left was de brie.

What is a cannibal’s favourite cheese?

Limburger

What did the gardener say to the cheesemaker when she asked him for vegetables?

Gruyère own

Did you hear about the cheese that failed?

It fell at the final curdle.

What cheese is made backwards?

Edam.

Aaaand now I need to go and eat some cheese and crackers. Merry Christmas, fellow HelloGiggles fans! I hope you all have a wonderful time filled with love and wine and cheese and great television.

Got any terribly good cheesy jokes or puns? I want to hear them! Leave me a comment below.

All images featured via Shutterstock.