20 Crazy Family Traditions

At Christmas, we all give each other a set of underwear, which once you receive you have to say, “ooh thank you” really loudly, stand up, then put the underwear on your head to show everyone. I had to have a serious conversation with my wife after her first Christmas with us.

Edit: forgot to add that the underwear must remain on your head, like a fancy crown, until all presents have been given out, and all members of the family were wearing said crown.

Hashtagbarkeep

Share one hotel room for seven people. Didn’t realize people could afford multiple hotel rooms. Still, some of the best experiences of my life.

notafanofusernames

We don’t refrigerate leftovers. Pizza? Goes in the oven. Turkey from Thanksgiving? Oven. Fast food? Microwave. Now that I’m older and understand that food goes bad I refrigerate things, but my parents still don’t. I’m surprised no one’s gotten seriously ill from it.

kibblesundbits

My immediate family? We don’t fight. There might be minor, polite disagreements, but shouting at each other arguments? Nope.

When I got married later, my in-laws were constantly at each other’s throats. It was so alien to me…like, you actually hate each other? I couldn’t cope.

gogojack

My wife’s family used to pass around a Tupperware full of vitamins after dinner. Like just random pills as if they were mints.

fla_john

My parents sleep on different beds since I have memory, not because they don’t love each other. My dad snores very loud, so it’s a no-no for my mom.

DieGreatPerkinazo

Growing up, when my family made tacos, they always put that orange wishbone French dressing on them. I didn’t realize this wasn’t a thing until I went to a friend’s house for Taco Tuesday with her family and I asked for French Dressing. They looked at me like I was crazy lol

Miss-Chanandler-B0ng

We pretty much never had sit-down family meals, and if we did it was from a restaurant, we ate in silence, and then we’d just wander off from the table one by one to watch TV or go on the computer or something. It’s not that we hate each other or anything, it’s just pretty much the way it’s always been.

PolkaDotsOnThursday

When I was younger we would go to my grandparent’s house and my grandpa told my cousins and I that if we put fireflies under rocks the next day there would be a quarter waiting for us, like a tooth fairy for fireflies. I used to try to catch as many as I could and put them under rocks around his yard and collect my quarters the next morning. Told this to a few people years later who looked absolutely horrified. Apparently, not everyone’s grandpa supports squishing fireflies under rocks for a quarter?

jacluch34

They refer to farts as tooters. Said it in class once in grade 4 and was mocked forever for it.

ScottsTots2013

We call the TV remote “the buttons” and we always have like its normal so when I would go to friends houses and we’d watch tv I would say “hand me the buttons” and they had no idea what the fuck I was saying.

clownn****

Talk about sex. My mom and I can talk openly about it, not specifically about our own sex lives, but sex in general isn’t taboo for us. It is for most people and their parents though.

Haylyn221

My dad loves corn on the cob. One summer he was such a fanatic about it, we ate it every day for three months.

I am an adult now, and don’t go near the stuff.

SmolBean07

I thought everyone who celebrated Christmas had a whole three-day celebration starting on December 23rd. You see, we have Ham Day (23rd), Turkey Day (24th), Christmas Breakfast (25th). We also get together New Year’s Day to eat pork chops and sauerkraut. That idea isn’t so weird, but the part that gets me some looks of disgust is when I mention how we pour maple syrup on the sauerkraut.

eclantantfille

When I was a kid we opened all of our Christmas presents after dinner on Christmas night. All of my friends open them Christmas morning, or sometimes even Christmas Eve, but we waited with all of the family including grandparents and aunts and uncles and the whole fam damn, dinner was eaten dishes were done drinks were served and we all sat together for several hours and opened Christmas presents. I don’t do that with my own family now but I do kind of miss that tradition.

opelette

When I was a kid we opened all of our Christmas presents after dinner on Christmas night. All of my friends open them Christmas morning, or sometimes even Christmas Eve, but we waited with all of the family including grandparents and aunts and uncles and the whole fam damn, dinner was eaten dishes were done drinks were served and we all sat together for several hours and opened Christmas presents. I don’t do that with my own family now but I do kind of miss that tradition.

opelette

My parents call doing a load of laundry a zenon… Example: My mom will ask my dad to do “half a zenon” if she means just put the stuff in the washer in the dryer and don’t start a new load. Or a full zenon is moving everything over, folding stuff in the dryer and starting a new load. They got tired of saying all that and it’s always been a zenon.

mojojo1025

When we watched movies, we would discuss what was happening, what we thought of the characters, or just random things that we thought of during the movie. When I would watch movies at my friend’s house, they found this very annoying and I didn’t realize people just sat in complete silence for two hours. I have since broken the habit (mostly) but when I meet up with my family it’s the same as it used to be.

opalsence3051

We have “The Blue Binder”.

The Blue Binder lists all sorts of aches and pains and tells you what emotional or ancestral issue is causing that pain.

Have seasonal allergies? It’s because your dad never forgave his father. Sprained your ankle? It’s because you have a fear of moving forward. Your right-hand middle finger hurts? It’s because you have penis envy.

My mom still swears by this and thinks I contracted Lyme Disease at 21 because of “trauma in the birth canal” spoiler: I don’t talk to that psychotic lady anymore

unhingedwhale

Our family uses ovens as a place to store pots and pans, we don’t use the dishwasher and use it as a kind of cabinet for the plates instead.

Joonsushi

The dish cloth.

As a kid, my family didn’t have napkins at the dinner table. We had a single, damp dish cloth (chux) that we used to pass around the dinner table and wipe out mouths and hands with. Just the one cloth.

Sure it’s an easy way to clean up messy eaters, but damn its disgusting to look back on.

Dragime84