Odd holiday traditions

[MEG&MINNIE]

My mom is a Surgical Nurse (now retired).

She used to always bring home boxes from work.

The first Christmas after DW and I got engaged, my mom gave my wife a gift in a box she brought home from work.

Like most folks, my then girlfriend opens the first gift from her future mother-in-law, and looks at the label on the box before opening it. The label says "Mammory Implant, size 38 D".

So now, 29 years later, the person who got the "box" last Christmas, passes it off to someone else with a gift inside.

So funny...she must have been mortified !

These are all so funny...I never thought of the letter thing ...but many of you have switched them around .

Keep them coming !

 

[MELSMICE]

These are funny. I don't think we have any odd traditions...at least not that I can think of right now.

 

[PixieDustandEeyore]

Every year on December 23rd we celebrate festivus...we get our festivus pole out and share our grievances to one another...and we have a ham we pass around on a big fork and take bites outta. We invite all our friends so the age group is varied as the age group of people in the family is varied

Remember Festivus is a holiday for the rest of us

 

[crazelion]

My family has a talent show every year. We all gather around the tree and preform a song or dance or play a musical instrument etc. I have no clue how this started but we always do it. And I always win .

That is our odd tradition too. Also we sit around play card. I always win to. I already got my dance that win this year dance off. I do the dance teach me how dougie.

 

[crazelion]

We also do the soul train line dance to.

 

[Diznotyzed]

We also rearranged our set of Noel letters, but since my father's name is Len, our letters always said O Len. My parents had a ceramic set with tumbling Santas on them and years later I found the exact same set at a garage sale on my street. I was thrilled to have my own O Len set!


Somebody always gets a gift from somebady we don't actually know. Last year I got something from The Hoff, with his picture on the tag.

Along with milk and cookies for Santa, we always "leave a little bit of cheese somewhere around the house" for the Christmas mouse, inspired by the lyrics to "Christmas Carousel" by Peggy Lee.

 

[Lassie Lynne]

Kinda boring, but we always have chinese food for Christmas dinner. Since it is just DH and I, and that was his family's tradition (they are jewish and always went out to dinner, usually only Chinese restaurants are open). These days, it usually involves DH going and picking it up, since we tend to have a nice eat-out dinner on Christmas Eve, but it has still stuck with us as something we enjoy.

 

[ohiomom28]

We just started it last year, we have crab legs for Christmas dinner

Christmas Eve and morning is at my moms but we come home to have our own family dinner

 

[christineann]

I love this thread! I think I'm going to start a new tradition.....the ugliest Christmas decorationas noted in an earlier post.

My great aunt (bless her) used to order knick knacks from catalogs so she would be entered into sweepstakes, and she gave one of us a plastic heart shaped box with flowers painted (?) on it. For the past 20 years, that same box had been wrapped up in fancy paper and given to one of the females in our family, who gets to wrap it up the next year. Though we all get a good laugh over it, we also remember what a dear, eccentric lady my great aunt was, and it's our way of keeping her memory each Christmas.

 

[froggygrrrl]

Every year, after we open gifts and are finished with dinner, we play Christmas Bingo. There is a small pile of wrapped presents set out and you get to pick one out whenever you get a bingo. Once the presents are gone, you can start stealing from everyone else when you get a bingo. This goes on until someone fills up their entire bingo card. Then everyone gets to open the "gifts" that they still have left in front of them.

The fun part is that all of the presents are ridiculous little things from the dollar store. They can be (and have been) anything from paper clips to erasers or bug spray or anything really. I used to love it when I was in college because everyone would give me the office supplies they opened. I never had to buy pens!

Now I love playing because it still cracks me up when we all open the presents and shout out with glee, "Look! I got soap!" or "Hey, a pencil sharpener!"

 

[GirTheGecko]

I used to go out of my way to find the ugliest ornament I could. Just to drive my mom crazy. I thought I had it one year when I got an Alice Cooper one (I'm a HUGE fan). But she thought it was awesome because it was so 'me.'

 

[snowywhite89]

At Target they had this ugly blown glass mosquito ornament. It was hideous!!! I was there the other day and they are all gone!

 

[BCV513]

We kick all the kids out of the room and do a naughty $10 Yankee swap. The funniest year was when my grandfather ended up with see-through Santa lingerie!

 

[Belle0101]

Years ago we used to have great fun at my grandma's Christmas Eve but the older generation has become grouchy. Over the years they've put the kibosh on everything.

The generations being:
Grandma
Her kids (the grouchy ones)
Her grandkids (my generation, the ones who remember when Christmas Eve was fun)
Her great-grandchildren (the ones banished to the basement)

What we used to do -

Played "BurgerMeister MeisterBurger", a totally made up game in honor of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town". My grandma has these round corduroy pillows on her couch and as kids we'd run through the basement tossing these at each other.

We also used to wad up the paper from our unwrapped gifts and throw it at each other.

After our gifts were open we'd take them up to the main living area of the house and share what we received. If someone got a game you'd play it. Good times.

But now -
No throwing pillows, no throwing wrapping paper and the grand-kids can't play in the main living area. They have to eat and play in the very basement of the house. There're 2 basements at grandma's house. The ones the grandkids have to eat and play in is unfinished.

 

[Juliegirl1]

I'm Jewish but we always had a Christmas tree - my mom would let us pick out a present from under the Christmas tree to open on each night of Hanukkah. (They were usually smaller gifts like bubble bath or a game). I've continued this tradition with my son. He thinks it's funny to unwrap Christmas wrapped gifts on Hanukkah but loves being able to get stuff early.

Our big family dinner was with my dad's side of the family on Christmas Eve and then my mom's side would come to our house for brunch and to open gifts on Christmas morning. We also would eat Chinese food on Christmas night - but one year we ended up at Chuck E. Cheese. We still laugh about that Christmas dinner.

 

[Minnesota!]

We have a 25 year old "craft project gone wrong" that gets passed around every year. Nobody knows who is getting it next and the rule is that you have to add something to it that makes it even uglier than it was before. There is a sheet that goes with it where you have to add the year, your name, and what you added to it.

It was quite hideous to begin with (started this in 1984) but it's really special now. We just call it The Duck because it started it's life as a baby duckling embroidery picture.

Edited to add: If you are the recipient, you are required to display it in your home for the next 12 months. It has to be in a public room, not stuck in a closet in the spare bedroom.

I love this!!!

 

[chicagodisneyfan]

We have the ceremonial 12 Days of Christmas Dance!
There are specific dance moves that are meant to mimic what the songs describe - so there is pretend milking, leaping, dancing.

All ages do this and it is hilarious. It is especially funny when there is a new fiance or significant other - the looks on their faces is priceless.

It gets better after a few shots of limoncello too!

 

[leight]

On Christmas Eve, I like to listen to the Christmas interview from the 1940s of Joan Crawford and two of her adopted children.

Out of curiosity, what do you like about this? I've never seen it- is there a transcript? I remember from the movie that she required them to always donate their presents- is that part of it? I'd love to see the transcript-I remember my adoptive mom not letting me read the book she was afraid I'd identify with it and I had to sneak seeing the movie!

 

[LukenDC]

Out of curiosity, what do you like about this? I've never seen it- is there a transcript? I remember from the movie that she required them to always donate their presents- is that part of it? I'd love to see the transcript-I remember my adoptive mom not letting me read the book she was afraid I'd identify with it and I had to sneak seeing the movie!

I love Joan Crawford and discovered her after seeing the movie Mommie Dearest. I then did my own research, read books, and watched her films. She was an amzing self-made woman who grew up in abject poverty and became a glogal icon with her own intelligence and determination. Mommie Dearest the movie is inaccurate in many areas and differs from the book in significant ways. As for the book and Christina's claims against her mother, the truth is probably in the middle.

You can find the Christmas broadcast here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0USou0QGQU

In the book, Christina says that most of the presents were saved to be re-gifted at birthday parties.

 

[leight]

I actually adored Joan growing up- my grandfather favored her movies after John Wayne so I saw most of them and thought she was extremely elegant.

I'm sure that there were many exaggerations- we always seem to remember things differently when it comes to Christina's book. I haven't read it as an adult because I honestly didn't want to hate Joan. I did find it interesting that she used a well known black market agency for several of the adoptions though.