There’s a reason why people call Christmas the most wonderful time of the year—it’s one of the very few occasions when we can press pause on our hectic lives and enjoy spending time with our loved ones. Whether it’s setting up the tree, decorating gingerbread houses, or sending festive cards to your relatives and friends, everyone has their own rituals.
Reddit user hellotintin100 asked people to share interesting or fun holiday traditions that they follow, and almost 46K Christmas enthusiasts replied. Just to warn you, some of the stories are so wholesome and adorable, your heart just melts a little bit while reading them.
Bored Panda took some of the most heartwarming comments from this post for you to enjoy. Continue scrolling and share your favorite holiday rituals in the comment section below, we would love to hear them!
Reddit user hellotintin100 asked people to share interesting holiday traditions that they follow and thousands of wholesome comments started pouring in
#1
A tradition we had when I was a child, and one I'll be continuing with my children when I have them, is the Christmas Eve box. For Christmas Eve, we were given one gift early, and it was a box with Christmas pajamas, a mug, hot chocolate mix, popcorn, and a Christmas movie. We would get to open it around lunchtime, and we'd spend the rest of the evening in our new jammies having cocoa and movies together.
Image credits: Mrs_carroll
#2
My brother and I stay at my mother's house on Christmas Eve with our families every year. We still sit at the top of the stairs on Christmas morning until my mother tells us we can come down to the living room to see what "Santa" left us. We're both in our 30s and our wives and kids now sit on the stairs as well. It's getting pretty crowded but I wouldn't have it any other way!
Image credits: ScoobJetson
#3
We have signs all over our house spelling out Leon instead of Noel. It started out as a joke because my dad is dyslexic, but it stuck and we even named our dog Leon and we’ve been doing it since I can remember.
Image credits: joceydoodles
#4
My parents were broke when I was a kid, but you'd never know it from Christmas. They always went all-out, put money on credit cards, etc. One Christmas we were particularly broke, but dad went out and spent (probably most) of his paycheck on last minute gifts.When we got home, my mom had been with us all day and since there was no money, she hadn't gone food shopping. All we had were some cheap hot dogs and canned beans.
My parents put the beans in a pot over the fire, grabbed the hotdog cooker from when we went camping, and threw the dogs on over the fire too. My sister and I loved it so much, we did it again the following Christmas.
Eventually we weren't quite so poor. The two-dollar AnP hotdogs became Nathan's, then Sabretts, then butcher Bratwursts. The beans went to BnM, then eventually fancy gourmet sh*t. But my sister and I are now adults with our own families, and even on years where we're not together, our entire family has hot dogs and beans on Christmas Eve.
Image credits: KyussSun
#5
My family has a tradition of leaving riddles on cards and guessing what the gift is before opening.We go around 1 by 1, reading our hint out loud so everyone can guess, then open it and show the room.
Ends up taking like 5 hours for everyone to get through their gifts, but it's always a fun time.
Image credits: MyNameIsRay
#6
My grandpa would always get up on the roof about an hour after our bedtime and stomp around on the roof with sleigh bells
Image credits: TheNoodyBoody
#7
Every Christmas the kids in the house have wrapping paper put over the entrances to their rooms so they get to rip through it in the morning. It originally started as a way to keep a certain kid in when he kept coming out early and opening presents before everyone was awake.
Image credits: Essendxle
#8
We meet up with some friends in a park and launch model rockets while drinking hot chocolate or coffee with booze, been going on for over 20 years.
Image credits: TopMacaroon
#9
Every year my wife and I buy an ornament for our tree that corresponds with something that happened that year. So we have a tree filled with all of these weird wacky ornaments like a tennis ball (we started playing tennis that year), swedish chef (Europe trip), Ship Captain Nutcracker (our first cruise), amongst many others. It's such a fun tradition in December to debate what we to get and then finding something. And then reliving them all when we put them up.
Image credits: Barrucuda
#10
28 years ago I was one of the first 100 customers at an HEB grand opening, for that honor I got two cans of this.That Christmas we had a fun Dollar Store White Elephant exchange with the family Christmas Eve. I wrapped a can of the potted meat as my contribution. My Mom got it and got a real kick out of it, she immediately re-gifted it to me the next day.
Well next year I wrapped it and gave it to my sister, the year after that she wrapped it and gave it to my Dad.
For the last 28 years this has been the most coveted gift of Christmas. I gave it to my son last year and he happily wrapped it for his cousin this Christmas.
Image credits: JohnnyBrillcream
#11
Each year we cut a round off the bottom of our Christmas tree. We label it with the year. Over time, it makes a sweet display and reminder of years past
Image credits: SARSStar367
#12
The first year my boyfriend and I were living together we decorated our tree only to realize we didn't have a topper. As a stand-in, we grabbed an oven mitt from the kitchen and put it on top. It made us laugh every time we looked at it, so it stayed and when we tried a nice "traditional" topper the following year it just felt wrong. So, here we are 14 years later, married and with a daughter and each year we pick a new oven mitt to put on top of our Christmas tree, the weirder the better!!
Image credits: Ellen Samiagio
#13
Every year for the last 8 years my sister and I gift each other a weird thing that makes the other one laugh. It started with when our house almost got repossessed just before Christmas and everything was so terrible that we just wanted to make each other laugh.Highlights include: 12 packs of frozen potato smiley faces to resolve a long forgotten childhood argument, 3 chocolate tubes filled with tinny rubbber ducks instead of chocolate, a lucky dip which involved hiding small gifts in socks and this year a bag of potatoes with Nicholas Cage's face blue tacked on every individual potato
Image credits: allegraoftherivers
#14
As kids we'd have this tradition of sneaking into each other's rooms and 'borrowing' something a week or so before Christmas. Then you wrapped the stolen item up and give it back as a decoy gift. We did it with our cousins, grandparents, aunts and parents too. It had to be something unimportant, but something they'd miss. Like a stuffed toy, a favourite spatula or a book. It became a very exciting competition to see how big the stolen item could be without you being caught. Bonus points if they didn't even notice it going missing One year my aunt noticed her stuffed bear was missing (it was also a hot water bottle) and made huge wanted posters that she hung everywhere - from the trees in our yard, to our bathroom to the Christmas tree. It was hilarious and my friends were very confused by this. My grandma was always in on the sneaking and diverting
Image credits: Lulani van der Merwe
#15
I always rearrange my moms Santa to say satan and see how long it takes her to realize it
Image credits: Tiffany Kindred
#16
I always changed my Mother in laws Noel candles to say El No. she would ask me if I did it and I’d say El No. She found me amusing and I miss her.
Image credits: dirkalict
#17
When we were younger, my parents had a tradition with us. We would always go out into the front yard with my dad to find the 'perfect' pine cone. Maybe a week or two before Christmas, we planted the pine cone in a pot and watered it. Then, overnight, it would become this magnificent, huge (to my young eyes), and fully decorated Christmas tree. It only worked in December and we were always told it was the Christmas magic. Then my sister and I figured it out when we found pine needles in my parents’ car.
Image credits: theatrekid97
#18
I was sent out to find pine needles in the back park a day or two before Christmas. They were allegedly for reindeer snacks, and they had to fill this big wicker basket that was normally full of magazines.Turned out, years later, that it was to get me out of the house while my mom transferred wrapped presents from the neighbor's garage into our house, as I always tried to find and open any gifts that I snooped on before Christmas day.
Image credits: leg_day
#19
My uncle always hosts Christmas at his house since family comes from all over and he has beds for everyone to stay over. On his property is about an 150 foot diameter pond.Every Christmas morning we wake up and build a giant bonfire to get ready for the impending shock we will feel later on around noon. We also try to get a decent drunk blanket going (for those that are of our families required drinking age) just in case.
Come Noon on Christmas Day, we do the Polar Plunge to rid our selves of last years crap and look forward to next year. We huddle around this bonfire while my Grandpa passes around shots to help warm up because that pond is f*cking freezing!
Image credits: reddicyoulous
#20
The family Goober award! Throughout the year, the previous winner tracks all the goofy mistakes family members make , i.e. locking yourself out of the house in your underwear when the trash collector is around the corner. Then at the big Christmas gathering, we all sit down and the previous year's winner presents all the family "goober nominees" leading up to the winner, the most laughable of them all, who gets awarded a decorated 3' tall trophy.
Image credits: yellowcard417
#21
I love when traditions born out of poverty are held onto and evolve. For my family it is chocolate oranges. My grandparents grew up during the depression and an orange would be all that they would get in their stocking, then in the ‘60s they held onto the idea of that by making sure that my mother and her siblings had orange gummies in their stockings, then when my mother had my siblings and I she updated it to chocolate oranges.I’m not a really big fan of sweets and chocolate doesn’t really like my digestive system since about my mid twenties, but I am so looking forward to getting that chocolate orange on Friday because it just takes me back to being a little kid.
Image credits: SuperMegaCoolPerson
#22
One year my great-aunt got her older sister, my grandmother, a bottle of Elizabeth Taylor perfume. The perfume happened to come with a watch - a shiny gold pleather-y affair with fake "white diamonds" around the face. It was hideous, but my Aunt wrapped up the watch too and hammed it up like it was a big deal. My Grandma laughed and wore it all day, showing it off like "Look at my gooold watch."The next year, my Grandma wrapped the watch and gave it to her sister... Laughter, surprise, etc.
The watch was gifted back and forth each year with great joy.
A few years ago my Grandma died in June. Later that year, when I was opening my Christmas present from my younger sister, I completely unsuspectingly unwrapped the gold watch. I sobbed and laughed, of course, and we have been trading it at Christmas ever since.
Image credits: Pinkmandms
#23
Started when I was about 24 but my mom has been getting me a Taylor Swift Calender and throwback 90's movie DVD. Going on 8 years and now and what I look forward to most Christmas morning. Soon to be 32y/o male for reference.
Image credits: Charmie48
#24
My best friend and I started a tradition of celebrating Christmas Eve Eve together (actual day is a little loose on interpreting based on life). We switch it up each year but we always dress up in Christmas outfits, have dinner, some kind of activity and a movie. At dinner we also exchange a book we picked for the other that we wrote a personal note inside. Then afterwards, we create a magnet for each other of our favorite photo from the night.
Image credits: edpumkin
#25
My family has the Christmas Elephant.The Christmas Elephant was the animal that Mary rode into Bethlehem on (donkey lobbyists disagree) and brings presents to good children on Christmas Eve. Bad children get a pile of elephant dung.
Every year we decorate the house with Red and Gold elephants and wait for the Christmas Elephant to come.
I love my weird family
#26
In my small hometown in west Germany, in the morning of 24. the people used to to gather at the marketplace, with all pubs opened for that occasion, and get absolutely wasted. It's a pretty fun come together, where we used to meet old friends once a year, before we went to our families for the big Dinner and the more traditional Christmas stuff. Obviously with Covid this can't happen this year. Sad times.#27
With my dad the tradition has been that he always gives me a pair of pajamas along with whatever else. Here is a picture of the ridiculous onesie he got me last year.With my mom it's always been a tradition to go to a movie on Christmas Day, which also happens to be her birthday. It's part of a tradition we have where we watch a movie together on each other's birthday. Of course this year that's out of the question, but we're probably just gonna get HBO and watch the new Wonder Woman on the couch instead.
My own personal tradition is to get drunk while watching Bad Santa. I love that movie and it's a fun one to drink along with.
Image credits: -eDgAR-
#28
As soon as this pandemic is over, and we can once again have Christmas gatherings, my sister and I can get back to smacking the hell out of each other with cardboard wrapping paper tubes. We’re in our 50s, btw.
Image credits: spiff2268
#29
Every year my grandpa reads our family The Night Before Christmas. He has Christmas ornaments that go along with the book so everyone was handed an ornament and you put it on the tree when your phrase was read out#30
My brother and I were hungry one year and our parents(where we celebrate Christmas) live very close to a gas station, where they sell surprisingly good hotdogs. So we went to get one each. My sister in law thought it was so ridiculous, so she snapped a picture. Now its tradition for us to go get a hotdog and pose for the yearly Christmas hotdog picture.#31
We always have McDonalds on Christmas Eve because we leave our wrapping until last minute and that's all we have time for. Sounds sad, but comes with happy nostalgia from wrapping and family.#32
I watch the Muppets Christmas Carol every single year, been doing that for the last ~25 years and I plan on continuing to do so.#33
I watch the Hobbit and Lord of Rings trilogies every year around xmas.#34
We design and build our own gingerbread "houses" out of homemade gingerbread. And they've gotten progressively more advanced. Last year I made Notre Dame cathedral (with candy cane buttresses), this year I made Avengers Tower.#35
My family is a bunch of cowboys. Literally. I have grown up riding horses. My dad is the oldest of four boys and their dad was a champion team roper/actual cowboy from West TX. Anyway, there are a lot of cowboy/horse items laying around. Pre-COVID, for my entire life, we’ve gathered on Christmas Day to eat and open presents. Before we transitioned to Dirty Santa, everybody would have to get everyone something and it was a nightmare. One year, my uncle Cody decided he didn’t want to buy everyone presents so when it was his turn, he sat a cowboy hat upside down on my grandmother’s rug in the living room. Then instructed us that we were now in teams- the brothers, the wives, and the grandkids (my grandmother got to play on each team). Each person stood at the other end of the rug and tried to toss a balled up pair of tube socks into the hat. You get 3 chances. It gets tricky because the socks can bounce out of the hat easily. I was champion the first year, only to get beat by my grandmother the next year. The prize is a dollar for how old he is that year. I think we’re at $58 now. This started when I was in middle school and I’m 29 now. It’s the Cody Sock Game. With a bunch of cowboys and football coaches in the room, it gets competitive, but it’s a lot of fun!#36
Scandinavian Xmas. 3hr dinner on the 24th until the oldest male of the house hears “Tomten” and we’re ushered into a room. We hear oldest male offer beer, milk or cookies to Tomten (who snuck through the key hole btw) Few mins later, we exit room, Tomtens load of presents are at the tree and we play a 70yr Swedish folk song while “hands on the hips” of the person in front of you, dancing a snake through the house, out the front door around the street with all pets yapping at your feet. You’re plastered as you started dinner with triple sized shot glass of unflavoured schnapps before the wine. We then sit in a circle and watch each person open a present handed to them by someone else, one at a time, passing said present around to “ooh ahh” inspect and/or smell it, if a scented product like cologn, etc. it’s never ended before 2am. The 25th is just a normal hangover day with a nice sit down lunch. Plot twist, we’re in Australia so it’s 40c lol.#37
When my oldest was born his uncle gave him a teddy bear which became his favorite toy. His uncle died just before his first birthday. The bear goes everywhere and gets pretty ragged after a while. We did a lot of searching and found the bear, bought several, and every year teddy waits in the Christmas tree to be picked up by the elves where he goes to the north pole and gets pampered. He comes back looking brand new and santa leaves him for our son. We've marked every bear with the year it's from and I'll be sad when he outgrows this tradition but for now, it's my favorite.#38
Me and my little cousin go to my nan’s to decorate her Christmas cake with a bunch of little decorations she has for it. Instead of placing them and decorating it normally, we put the decorations in weird and whacky situations; examples include Santa getting his ass sniffed by a polar bear, carol singers getting assaulted with snowballs, a tree crushing someone and robins crapping on people.#39
My dad's mom used to read Santa Mouse to me and my cousins. It was a book about Santa's helper who was a mouse. So for my whole life we have left out milk and cookies for Santa, and cheese and crackers for Santa Mouse. In return Santa Mouse would put gift cards or cash into the tree itself. So after opening presents you hunt in the tree for Santa Mouse's gifts!Definitely a tradition I will carry on to my kids down the road.
#40
Vowing to watch the entire 24 hr marathon of A Christmas Story, watching it once, giving up, and vowing that I'll do it next year.#41
Surprise presents drinking auction.I was introduced to this tradition by a co-worker who organized it for our office party, apparently it was a thing at their house. Basically, there's a bunch of wrapped gifts, with different sizes and values, and a big jug of moderately strong drink, could be half mixer-half liquor of something you like.
Each gift gets put up for auction, but you bid shots of drink. Whoever will drink more shots in exchange for the gift gets to keep it, drinks his bid, and then finds out what's inside the wrapping paper. We ended up coupling up so we could bid more shots and we all ended up pretty wasted. Good times.
#42
We have two main traditions. First, Christmas morning, breakfast is always a pan of cinnamon rolls and orange rolls. And second, on Christmas you can't get dressed for the day; everyone has to wear pajamas all day, no exceptions.#43
My great grandfather was making a Christmas ham many years ago and while taking it out of the oven my great grandmothers water broke and he dropped it. So now every year we have a ham lol.#44
A buffet for 10..... for 2So my wife and I spend the days leading up to Christmas Eve going around and buying a selection of the poshest ‘party food’ from the likes of M&S, Booths, Waitrose. On Christmas Eve We will bathe the kids (10 & 5) play board games with them, watch movies etc.... it’s bed for 9pm & 10pm for them both. The oven then goes on. 30-40 minutes later we have enough food to feed at least 10, but it’s just for the 2 of us and we always do pretty well and are stuffed by 11:30pm. A few glasses of wine or G&Ts keep the merriment going. We arrange the gifts at around 1am and it’s off to bed. Excited ourselves, we usually end up discussing what food was our favourite and my wife makes a note to buy again the following year.
Apart from seeing the kids faces on Xmas morning, this is by far my favourite part of Xmas.
I hope everyone has a good one this year and is able to fill their bellies and enjoy the company of those you love.
#45
Years ago my mom made fake gingerbread cookie ornaments for the Christmas tree. Our family dog would try to pull them down and eat them. She still hangs one (with two bitten limbs missing) in memoriam. It’s been 10 years, but we still miss that greedy girl.#46
Something a little different i suppose. We always have lasagna Christmas Eve Eve (day before Christmas Eve). We also open our presents Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day, but on Christmas Day we would always go to our grandparent’s house to open presents with them.
Image credits: FireTrick
#47
Every year we leave Santa a beer. He needs it. Santa also prefers Tecate.
Image credits: angerdome
#48
I'm Catalan, meaning I follow Catalan Christmas traditions. In Catalonia (Barcelona's the capital), we've got two fun, or at the very least, interesting traditions. I want to preface this by assuring you all that I'm not making this up (google it if you don't trust me).Here it goes.
It's 'el Tió de Nadal' (Yule Log), colloquialy called 'Caga Tió' (a translation would be 'Crapping Log', or something similar). Tió is a cut log with a painted face on the cut surface, and a red cap (a traditional Catalan hat called barretina). We've got it at home, typically under the Christmas tree, often covered with a blanket (God forbid Tió gets cold!).
During the weeks before Christmas, kids give some food to their Tió (mandarines, bananas, biscuits...) every night. When they wake up *gasps* Tió's eaten it all! (the parents removed the food, but the little ones are oblivious to that, obs). The idea behind that is that we want Tió to eat a lot so that he can, er, poop a lot. Why? Well, Tió is a magical log that poops presents. Yes, Caga Tió is our Santa Claus equivalent.
How exactly does a log poop, though? Easy. Kids need to grab a stick and hit Tió repeatedly while singing a song that basically says, quote/translation: "Crap, Tió. Crap hazelnuts and pine nuts nougat. If you don't behave yourself, I'll hit you with my stick. Crap, Tió." Note that this is just one version. There are others.
After that, the kids lift the blanket and usually get nougat, other Spanish and Catalan Christmas sweets, chocolate, and toys. I got my first bike thanks to Tió back when I was 3, so presents can be big XD Parents just need to hide the presents under the blanket, unseen by the children, before the song/hitting ritual begins.
Children love it.
2) We've got another scatological tradition called 'El Caganer'. This is a figurine we add to the nativity scene/manger (not sure what it's called in English, sorry). The thing is that ' el caganer' means 'the crapper'. It's a figurine which shows a shepherd typically dressed in traditional Catalan clothes (including that barretina Tió also wears), squatting while he defecates. It may seem offensive, but the Catholic Church is okay with it, as the poop symbolizes fertility for the land where Jesus is born. El Caganer is so famous some people buy 'celeb' caganers (there's a Trump version, a Rosalía version, a Harry Potter version, a Merkel version... and so on).
Why are Catalans obsessed with poop? Nobody really knows. Don't ask me.
We celebrate more traditions (both Catalan and Spanish), but these two are the funniest. If I talked about them all, this post would be even longer XD
Happy, safe holidays from Catalonia!
Image credits: SnowFlakeObsidian4
#49
We have quite a few.We open Christmas season by putting up the tree the day after Thanksgiving and watching Polar Express. We've done this for so long that my 20 and 17 yr olds have no memory of not doing it, and my 13 year old has never had a Christmas where we didn't do this.
My youngest and I make a list of holiday movies, and keep track of all the ones we watch. We shoot for one movie a day starting December 1st up until Christmas--with some movies earmarked for specific days. We also watch as many holiday themed episodes of our favorite tv shows as we can.
The weekend before Christmas is when we make hot cocoa, pile into the car, put on Christmas music, and drive around to look at light displays.
December 23rd is Cookie Day. I get up early, and spend the day baking. I always make way too much. The kids help when they get up. I watch A White Christmas in the morning, and we watch Christmas with the Kranks in the afternoon. This also happens to be the anniversary of my mom-in-law passing. We always buy a Christmas bouquet of flowers and tell stories about her. The kids were young when she died so they have a foggy memory. They like to hear about her. She was an amazing grandma.
Christmas Eve is when we hand out new pajamas and watch Home Alone. Home Alone is our favorite Christmas movie so we cap off the season with it.
Christmas Day is usually when I do this incredible BBQ brisket. This year we did that early in the month, and are having a simple meat & cheese spread for Christmas day. That way I can spend less time in the kitchen and more time playing board games and video games. For the past decade, Santa has made it a habit of bringing us all Steam gift cards and a huge stack of board games. Pajamas all day, good food, board games. It's perfect.
Image credits: IwantAnIguana
#50
The tradition in our house was whatever you got for Christmas, you had to wear to the pub at lunchtime on Christmas Day. I’ve been to the pub in pjs, 4 pairs of socks, running vest and shorts, etc etc#51
Watch home alone every year, know the movie script inside out now.#52
Not a family tradition, as much as it's something that I just decided everyone has to do a few years ago.Everyone makes plates for someone else in the family. No one is allowed to get food and drinks for themselves. It reminds my kids that even little gestures show appreciation for those around you, and to not be selfish when it comes to making others feel loved.
#53
When my husband and I had our first baby, in April, someone gave us a lovely photo frame ornament for baby's first Christmas. We forgot about it and when it was time to decorate the tree we didn't have time/energy to find a pic, so we left the store pic in it. After 7 years of this, when our 2nd baby was 2, she asked who the baby was. We said it was a stranger baby, which is now written on the ornament in Sharpie. It's been 18 years now, and we love talking about where stranger baby has ended up when we decorate the tree.#54
On Christmas Eve we're each given a present early. It's always pajamas and once everyone has opened their present the Pajama Races begin. Everyone runs to their respective rooms and puts on their pajamas then races back to the tree. There is no prize for the winner except bragging rights.Then there is a final present that has been wrapped multiple times with a ton of tape. We all stand around the kitchen table and attempt to unwrap it one at a time. Except you have to put on mittens and a Santa hat before attempting to unwrap it. The person to your left is rolling dice and if they get doubles then you stop trying to unwrap it and pass the mittens and hat to them so they can try. This game becomes very loud and fast so you need to keep on your toes. It keeps going around in a circle until someone is successful. The gift is always a board/card/dice game and we play the game until its time to go to bed. My siblings and I are all grown now, but we'll probably continue to play this with our parents until we have spouses to bring home...then make them play as well.
#55
Each year for Christmas, instead of writing our real names on the presents, my parents would take a random theme and assign my siblings and I a name based on said theme (for example this year’s theme is liquor and the names are “Scotch,” “Whiskey,” and “Gin”) and we have to guess who is what name. Whoever guesses correctly gets a little homemade Christmas themed “trophy” called the “Christmas smartass award” that they can keep until next Christmas#56
Our family has a rather odd Christmas tradition that got its start over thirty years ago. At the time our two sons had a collection of small plastic figures that provided a lot of play time with each other. These figures would sometimes be part of an elaborate array of props and story lines; at other times it would be just a couple of figures taken along to occupy the time while riding in the car.One of younger boy's favorites was a figure he called Radio Pants. Radio Pants went missing one day. Everyone looked for him but it seemed he was lost. He was disappointed. Occasionally there would be a renewed search, but he was not found. It was the Christmas season and there were other distractions so the missing Radio Pants faded from our memory.
We have an artificial Christmas tree that spends most of its life packed away in two boxes that are stored above the garage with the other decorations. Each year all the Christmas decorations are brought down and when the boys were small the excitement of the holidays usually began by assembling the tree and putting on the ornaments.
The year following the loss of Radio Pants was no exception in the routine of putting up the tree. After placing the central “trunk” in its holder, the individual branches would be taken from the box and its twigs would be adjusted. The color coding on the end of each branch would be checked and then it would be put into place.
During this process we came across Radio Pants clinging to one of the branches. During their play the previous year he had evidently been placed in the tree. We hadn’t thought to look for him there, or at least if we did, he went unnoticed. We had a good laugh when the younger son shouted, "Radio Pants"!!!
We were all happy to see him again and since the little group of plastic characters were no longer occupying the boys’ time we just left him on the tree. He seemed perfectly happy to spend the holiday on the tree after being boxed up in the garage for a year. When it came time to put the decorations away it was decided that Radio Pants would maintain his place on the branch and he was packed away with the tree and put above the garage.
That routine has been repeated each year. Radio Pants recently emerged from the box along with his branch and will be celebrating his thirty-first return to spend Christmas with us. He is a happy reminder of the many Christmas seasons we have spent together. I look forward to seeing him each year and he doesn’t seem to mind the fact that he spends most of his life in a dark box. I think he, like me, has to wonder how little boys can grow so quickly into men.
#57
Go to Frankenmuth (Christmas town in MI) and sing along to the Emmet Otter’s Jug Band Christmas soundtrack all the way home#58
I’m 9 years older than my brother and we used to build a huge blanket fort every Christmas Eve. It was mainly to make sure he wouldn’t leave in the middle of the night and stumble upon Santa, but we kept it up for a while even after I left for college and it was one of my favorite things to look forward to#59
We do this thing called "el recalentado" which means "the reheating" in Spanish. Basically in the morning after Christmas eve(which is when we celebrate) all our family even the ones who didn't celebrate together go to our aunts house with a dish from the day before and we all just reheat the food from the parties and just eat and hang out. It's kinda a little get together in the morning after the party.#60
We always played Bingo as a family on Christmas Day, ever since I was little. We have prizes- some silly, some good, and scratch off tickets. We stopped for a long time after my Grandpa died, but we started playing again, and it felt really good to play together again as a family. Our kids now enjoy playing it too#61
My boyfriend and I grab a bag of Krystals (White Castle for the rest of you) and roll around town looking at Christmas lights. There were so many good displays this year (and all wildly spaced apart) that it took nearly three hours to see them all.#62
We always put an orange or tangerine in the Christmas stocking.I think the tradition started when my Oma was a child in WWII era Germany and fresh produce was hard to come by. She passed away but we will always put oranges in the stocking in memory of her.
#63
We did a traditional snowball fight with different sized marshmallows. Christmas Eve, after opening up Christmas pj's and wearing them. Next morning they would come wake us up to open gifts and we would throw more marshmallows there way. They loved it! Christmas Eve was aldo an appetizer night each kid made their own to share#64
In a normal year, out son would be spending the night on Christmas Eve, I always made lasagna. The next day hubby would make an enormous breakfast and we'd open our presents (always way too many) and we'd lay around like beached whales for the rest of the day, watching A Christmas Story and Christmas Vacation. He'd head home at three and hubs and I would finish the lasagna for dinner. Not this year though.#65
Wife and I order from the same Chinese restaurant every Christmas Eve. We eat from there almost exclusively on Christmas Eve - we don't do much chinese through the year regularly. Started one Christmas Eve when we were both feeling lazy and hasn't stopped... 12+ years now.#66
Shaker present. Shake present, ask yes or no questions, you figure it out before xmas, you open it.#67
Every year we make Christmas paella. Also nothing makes it Christmas besides eating it on Christmas. There is no turkey or ham, and the clams don't start singing Deck The Halls when they open or anything...#68
Every year everyone in my immediate family buys each other a Christmas tree ornamented. Now our tree is covered with good memories that actually have meaning.#69
We had an old friend who was perfect for playing the Santa. The kids and I loved his antics and dance. He unfortunately passed away a year ago after being in a terrible accident. We give him a tribute by talking to his parents on Christmas, us friends drinking together and dancing for his favorite songs with his signature steps. Although we can't meet up this year, we've set up a zoom call and ordered Christmas caps & fake beards online. We're pretty sure that idiot is still rocking the costume somewhere far away from us. We miss him every Christmas.#70
We hide a pickle in the Christmas tree, the person who finds it gets an extra present.#71
We eat rice porridge and hide a peeled (?) almond in it. The person finding it is the winner, and the price is a marzipan pig. (Norway)#72
Leaving whisky & mince pie for Santa & a carrot for Rudolph. Reading The Night Before Christmas all tucked up in bed. Having a chocolate selection box for breakfast on Christmas morning.I'm 29 & still keep these up, can't wait to pass them down!
#73
We hide a Christmas Spider in our tree and on Christmas morning the kids get to look for the spider. Who ever finds it gets to open the spider's gift (usually it's something they can share)#74
We tip my grandma over in her chair (carefully). We couldn't do it last year because she moved her chair to be against the wall, and we can't do it this year because of covid. But regardless, it is our tradition, alongside sventsunka (no idea how to spell it), which is just Polish sausage, pierogi, and rye bread and butter. Very fun.#75
Santa puts the stockings on everyone's bed. This way, the kids can play with the stuff in the stockings and the adults get more sleep.#76
I know my family isn’t the only one, but we have a huge party Christmas Eve. We wait till midnight then open our presents. I come from a big family so it’s always chaos every year and so fun. So sad it ain’t happening this year, my daughter was born this year and won’t see them all with her.#77
In the south of France where my dad and his family grew up, there this tradition of the 12 Desserts of Christmas, we used to do it when my grandma was alive because she loved this tradition and we're trying to keep it alive. You just have to bake, cook or prepare 12 different desserts, ranging from almond paste stuffed dates to piles of cookies and eat them at Christmas eve, but it usually lasts way longer than that.#78
I don't know if anyone else find it interesting but in my family we don't open presents until after the Queens speech. We're not royalist but it's traditionBut it's worth the wait because it makes the christmas feeling last longer!
#79
My grandmother gave us a blowup Santa in an outhouse. My family thought it would look weird in our yard, so now we prank friends on Christmas Eve by putting it on the front door and waiting for them to see it.#80
My dad likes to get stuck into the red wine on Xmas day. A couple of years ago we were in the kitchen and he was pretty well inebriated and spots a fly and says "oh great there's the lucky Christmas fly!".We were all like what the hell are you taking about and he continues to try and convince us drunkenly this is a legit tradition, that if you spot a fly on Xmas day it's good luck.
We had a great laugh about it but the irony now is that it has actually become a tradition in our house. If a fly is spotted in the house on Dec 25th our luck is in
#81
On Christmas Eve, I play "Silent Night" on the softest, most beautiful stops on the pipe organ while a cello plays the melody.Everyone joins in singing Silent Night in harmony with the church in candlelight.