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Holiday Traditions

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Guy Fawkes, Dec 11, 2009.

  1. Guy Fawkes

    Guy Fawkes
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    Tis the season to participate in secret Santa, Yankee swap, dreidel spinning, mistletoe kissing, harambee, etc.

    I hosted my family Christmas party with great success last year and will be doing it again this year. A tradition we started was the Giant Sausage being a part of the Yankee Swap. Every year there will be a giant Hickory Farms sausage as part of the swap which will either be the sausage from the year before (these things never expire) or a new similar smoked sausage provided by the previous year's recipient.

    No one wants the damn thing and it requires packing creativity to disguise the meat log which is pretty funny.

    Focus: What non-traditional traditions do you and yours participate in during the holidays?
     
  2. Crown Royal

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    Just call me Topher

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    I said it once, I'll say it a thousand times: National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. I'll watch it a few times over December, but we ALL watch it on Christmas Eve. It's absolutely timeless and one of the top five funniest films of all time.
     
  3. toddus

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    Sounds like Christmas at the Jolie-Pitt house.
     
  4. jets22

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    Strange.. I played this game once before, but it had nothing to do with Christmas. Now I'm all sorts of confused.
     
  5. Pinkcup

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    I'm sure you've played this one too-- a Pinkcup family tradition we call (I'm not making this up) "Find the Pickle."

    We have a pickle ornament that my Dad hides amongst the other tree ornaments every year on Christmas Eve after all of the "kids" have gone to bed. Then, on Christmas morning, we are all supposed to carefully comb through the tree and search for the ornament--if found, the ornament is redeemed for an extra Christmas present. Usually, the present is just a green envelope with $50 in it but once or twice it has been a $200-$300 gift card to Best Buy. Since my brothers and I are almost always broke and in desperate need of new XBox games, the family tradition has turned into a chaotic, violent, and upsetting battle that everyone secretly loves waaaay more than the sweet searches of Christmases past.

    Instead of gently moving branches out of the way and peering into odd branch angles in search of a pickley green glint, we rip the fucking tree apart amidst screams from Mom and threats of death from Dad lest we break any of the sentimental ornaments already on the tree. Since my mother knows no limits when it comes to ornaments, the tree is already sagging with the weight of about a thousand ornaments. We thrust branches aside frantically, and call out the location of falling ornaments so that someone will catch them before they hit the hardwood floor and shatter. Our tree is about 8 feet tall, and usually extremely dense--this leads to several false cries of "Wait! I've found it!" only to discover that it wasn't found at all. Everyone is holding their breath, elbows are being thrown, tree sections are being declared private search territories, and Mom is yelling that if we don't act nicely she's not going to let Dad hide the pickle next year. Dad engages in a shitty, shitty series of "You're getting warmer......nope, now you're colder" statements that may or may not be true and usually trick me every single time.

    Ultimately, two people will see the pickle simutaneously and whoever fights the dirtier battle to grab it wins the "Pickle Present". Calling out that you've found the pickle will only net you four other hands in your immediate vicinity, so sometimes it's best to stay quiet until it is safely in hand. But watching the disappointed faces of your adversaries up close is always a moment to be treasured, so it's a tough call.

    After that we all open presents and have Cinnabons for breakfast.

    Edit: Thanks to Slambrarian for reminding me via rep: Until recently, someone was guaranteed to cry every single year. Now that we're all over the age of 16, we mutter cursewords at each other instead. But the crying was awesome--Dad took pictures so we'd all be reminded not to be a sore loser. It never worked, but those pictures are the best.
     
  6. Temerarious

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    I have a large extended family, and we all go through a few cases of wine every Christmas we get together. I think it's also important to mention that I am at least 35 years younger than the rest of them.

    A few years ago "Jackass: the movie" came on television on Christmas eve. We were all loaded, and decided that watching Jackass was a perfect way to spend the night before Christmas. Later we went out and bought the movie, and now every year we watch it on Christmas eve.

    We do not live in a trailer.
     
  7. Tuesday

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    Hah, we do this Christmas Eve with the extended family (16 cousins). Usually the "hider" is whoever found it last year.
    Though we don't get as... physical... I guess the younger cousins go a little crazy, but that's expected.


    Another family tradition is the closet alcoholics filling themselves with Christmas Cheer. I don't understand why they just can't embrace the fact they enjoy drinking like my entire Dad's side of the family.

    Oh, and anyone else do the "Right Family" pass the present thing? It's a story about the Right family, and every time "right" or "left" is mentioned, the cousins pass the gift they're currently holding to the right or left accordingly. Best when the aforementioned closet drunk is reading the story and laughing at every mix-up.
     
  8. Cope

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    My family likes to play "who is going to get hurt this year?"

    This tradition started back when I was around 12 or 13 years old. Christmas is always at my Uncle's house so I was over there opening up presents. There were so many people opening presents that none of the floor could be seen. Well...my Uncle had just gotten a Toy Poodle for his kids. The thing was tiny. It had gotten lost in the wrapping paper and managed to crawl under the recliner that I was sitting in. When the wrapping paper was cleared we saw the puppy's tail from under it, and it wasn't moving. They had to rush the puppy to the Emergency Vet on Christmas Eve. Luckily the thing lived.

    The next incident happened a few years ago. My Uncle married a Colombian woman, who brought with her the rest of her family, illegally. So every family get together the Colombians would come over and they always get drunk. The end result for this Christmas was that one of them fell down the stairs and we had to call the ambulance.

    The very next year my Colombian Great Aunt started getting massive pains in her abdomen. After about a half hour of hearing her laying on the couch screaming we thought it might be appendicitis, so we called the ambulance.

    The best part? It was the same two EMTs from the year before. And they remembered us. And they were pissed.

    So now we kind of figure that some sort of shit is going to go down. Usually its just one of my little cousins getting to riled up and hurting themselves, but we're prepared.
     
  9. Old Hairy Porno

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    One of my best friends 'Bill' and his brothers still receive kettle corn from their dog that died over a decade ago. Their father claims that the dog left a trust fund in its will. And even though at twenty-five Bill is the youngest his parents have to mark the package:
    To: Steve, Bill, and Mike
    From: Dead Dog
    because when Bill's name is last his older brothers rip his name off so they can claim he doesn't get any.
     
  10. Noland

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    Milk punches for breakfast.

    These are simply vanilla milkshakes liberally laced with bourbon and sprinkled with nutmeg. (The nutmeg is important.)

    Is getting drunk at 10:00 in the morning on Christmas non-traditional?
     
  11. Degenerate

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    Having everyone remind me each Christmas that I was fortunate enough to be sitting beside my sister when her water broke.

    Fuck the Holidays.