Every family celebrates the holidays in their own unique way. We recently asked the BuzzFeed Community to tell us about the holiday traditions they did growing up that they now realize are actually pretty darn weird. People had a lot to share — here are some of the best responses!
Note: Some of these responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
1. “My family put on a full-fledged talent show on Thanksgiving night for years called ‘The Turkey Show,’ and you HAD to be in it. No one got a pass. Those were some of the funnest nights of my childhood.”
2. “We play a Christmas game called ‘Who sees the most Christmas trees?’ It started as a typical car-traveling game to pass the time when I was a young girl: You had to point out any illuminated Christmas tree you saw, and the first person who screamed ‘tree!’ got a point. We still play it 30 years later, but it has evolved into a full-fledged competition we play when taking a walk. We body-check others out of the way, cover each other’s eyes, and try to sprint to well-known trees to score a point. Half the city thinks we’re unhinged when my 70-year-old parents come barreling down the street, screaming ‘TREE!’ from the top of their lungs, but we always have the time of our lives!”
—Anonymous
3. “We make pizzas and watch Inglourious Basterds (2009). I have no idea how or why the tradition started, but if you ask us, it’s a Christmas movie.”
—anonymous
4. “On Christmas Eve, we would go to my grandparents,’ and they always ordered Pizza Hut’s Bigfoot Pizza.”
—Anonymous
5. “Presents were never exchanged until at least 8:00 p.m. on Christmas Day. We used to try to guess how late in the day it would be!”
6. “I have six older siblings, and my parents were always worried about who we were dating growing up. Somehow, they made us believe that if you got caught under the mistletoe, you had to tell everyone in the room the names of everyone you kissed that year. Looking back, it was creepy.”
—Anonymous
7. “My mom sewed a tiny baby blanket with multi-colored polka dots on it, and put it on top of little baby Jesus in our nativity scene. She kept it on until late Christmas Eve, and would take it off because ‘Jesus was born now.'”
—Anonymous
8. “No one knows how this got started, but it’s been going on for years. Every Thanksgiving after we eat dinner, we save a can of cranberry sauce to roll down the stairs like a Slinky. We call it ‘the cranberry roll’ and look forward to it all year.”
—Anonymous
9. “Dad would make a big pot of a traditional Nordic hot alcohol that tasted like paint thinner. When he finally deemed it ‘ready’ after steeping for several days, he made us (literal children) drink it, and would get angry if we didn’t want to.”
—Anonymous
10. “After my daughter was born, we bonded by watching the original Masters of the Universe cartoon form the ’80s. She was fascinated by Mister Skeletor, so since then, she’s gotten an annual gift from Mister Skeletor on Christmas — the only day of the year when he’s ‘nice.’ She’s received a life-sized foam replica power sword, action figures, comic books, and a reclining Skeletor Funko Pop. She looks forward to it every year!”
—Anonymous
11. “Milk and cookies for Santa, but make it Italian. When my sister and I were younger, we would leave the traditional chocolate chip cookies and milk out, along with carrots for the reindeer. I guess one year, Santa decided he’d had enough of chocolate chip and wrote a letter to us requesting Stella Doro S cookies and Pignoli Cookies. Milk was still okay, but he wanted 2% instead of whole. Eggnog was acceptable, but he had to watch his caloric intake. We showed my mom the letter, and she rolled her eyes and laughed. Santa received his Italian cookies and sent a letter thanking us.”
—Anonymous
12. “On Christmas Eve, we always had fondue — not cheese, but boiling oil. We would dip bits of beef, mushrooms, and vegetables.”
13. “My parents would throw a huge party on Christmas Eve, and at 11 p.m., we would divide everyone in half and sing back and forth to each other about the birth of Jesus Christ. We also had a porcelain baby Jesus that we would rock to sleep at midnight, and everyone had to kiss it. On Christmas Day, people from the party would come and go for leftovers, but other than that, it was a normal day.”
—Anonymous
14. “I grew up in the Milwaukee area, which has a big German culture. On Christmas, we were served raw hamburger with sliced onions on rye bread and pickled herring. We also had these bowls of shelled nuts, which nobody liked or ate, but were still trotted out every year.”
—Anonymous
15. And lastly: “We had an indoor pool and would host pool parties over Christmas break.”
(BuzzFeed)
