Ridiculous made up 'traditions'

[Sittinonthefloor]

Looking at you on your shelf, Elf . It actually has the word 'tradition' on the box, after what, 2 years?

Also spotted today 'Christmas Table Favours' eh? Not a thing! They were like wedding favours (also ridiculous) but gold and silver. That's what crackers are for surely?

Advent calendars for grown ups, Christmas pjs, also Christmas Eve boxes (haven't dared discover what they are though).

Love, love, love made up / evolved family traditions but feel irrationally enraged by the commercial ones, and more so that people seem to fall for it with enthusiasm!

I started an Xmas eve box as a way of getting DS to calm down and go to bed (bath bomb - the sleepy time one from Lush, and The night before Chistmas book).
Then I added in traditions from my childhood - muppets Christmas carol to watch on Xmas eve, new PJs or dressing gown as 'mother Christmas ' always put nightware / slippers etc under the tree (though they are just ordinary Pjs - not Xmas themed).

It is in a box. A shoebox, as that is where the book and Dvd are stored.

I think maybe I should do a Christmas Eve box for the teenagers. We could drink cider and watch the Inbetweeners.

Sparklingbrook our Christmas Eve box always has Baileys and generally we end up watching The Inbetweeners! Makes us feel nostalgic and homesick...

We don't have DVDs in there though because we stream everything. Kids are just excited to get the same old book, the reindeer food and the santa key. They are as simple as only a 5 year old and 2 1/2 year old can be God love 'em.

I have seen pictures on Facebook of children with five advent calendars each which seems excessive to me.

Not a "child" as she is 18 but DS1s GF has 9. A make up one and a chocolate from her mum, chocolate one from dad, chocolate one from her nan, chocolate one from me, chocolate one from DS, chocolate one from my mum, chocolate one from DHs mum and her DP and a make up one she brought herself before she knew how many she would get.

And DD1, 16, has a make up one from me, make up one from DS1s GF, chocolate one from DH who thought she might be sad she doesn't have chocolate from us a chocolate one from my mum, chocolate one from DHs mum and a chocolate one from DS1 who was forced to by one for her by his gf haha.

Some of these modern "traditions" definitely make me go 'urgh'! Can't be doing with EOTS and things like that.

We take some family traditions and make some of our own. For instance in my family we had stockings Christmas morning but I live in Finland now where Christmas is celebrated on Christmas Eve so I moved stockings to Christmas Eve morning. No need for a Christmas Eve box as we open all the presents on Christmas Eve after dinner.

Our Christmas tradition is my dad always brought me out for breakfast Christmas eve morning to say thanks for picking out my mams present. Now he has discovered online shopping but our tradition has expanded to include mam, my dh and last year our baby dd.
I do miss it being me and dad though was always the start of Christmas for me.
We also go to my nans church for Christmas eve mass then the whole family go back to her tiny house to cut the Christmas cake. Then home through town to look at the lights.

When we get home we listen to A Christmas Carol on Edison wax cylinder, fall asleep on the sofa, wake up, turn it over and listen to the second half, go to bed and put stockings out.

Would that be the latest model then and was it purchased from Spillers?

We do the elf, and the Christmas Eve box and the PJ's , and to me, they seem part of a simple Christmas - a way of taking ordinary, everyday things and making them seem special. Today she left instructions on how to make a wreath, so we foraged some ivy and made one after school. The children have made her a bedroom out of boxes, and decorated it, and made furniture.

The box on Christmas Eve is a plain jute shopping bag. It has new pyjamas for the children ( which are generally the only ones they get all year) and the adults get their nicest PJs gift-wrapped, or new if they need new ones. There are hot chocolate and marshmallows from the cupboard, the copies of The Night Before Christmas and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas which we read every night, a lavender bath bomb to relax, a goodbye note from the elf, everyone's Christmas stockings, ready to hang up, and a set of thank-you cards to make writing them seem a bit more special.

So to me, those things are very much in the spirit of an old-fashioned Christmas.

We always put the tree up on the first Saturday in December, watch Elf, and have popcorn and hot chocolate. For Christmas Day i do stockings and presents, but no Christmas Eve box or bedding (although I am quite partial to a new decoration or two!). Christmas Day breakfast is always pork pie which is a long running tradition from my family.
We are starting to have some regular Christmas things though, which will become 'traditions', such as carols on Christmas Eve on the green by our house, followed by mulled wine and mince pies with the family and any friends we invite.
Our biggest 'traditions' are our very special decorations, certain key items that come out year after year and have a set place. I love reindeer so have amassed quite a hoard (herd?) over the years and they all have names and dd and I love getting them all out and putting them in their places. We're in a new house this year so we'll need to find new locations for them all!

It's all relatively recent, this Christmas pyjamas/Shelf Elf/Christmas Eve boxes stuff. Certainly it didn't exist a decade ago. It's odd how society has craved "traditions" (even if they're not traditional) in the last few years. Maybe lots of social change mean we crave some sense of security? But then there were huge social changes after the war and again in the 60s etc and people didn't make up bollocks then. Or maybe they did and I just don't know about it. We need a historian.

My brother is 35 and my mum has always bought us new pjs and bedding on Xmas eve, so no it's not particularly recent in our family
And lots and lots of people on this thread have said the same
So I'd say Xmas pj's actually are a legitimate 'tradition'

I think a Christmas Eve box is a lovely idea and doesn't have to be commercialised at all. It's the same stuff (copy of The Night Before Christmas etc) coming out of it each year!

The one I've really noticed this year is the advent calendars. They are made of beauty products, gin and all sorts. Ours doesn't even have chocolate in it....

Christmas Eve boxes aren't really new. They're just some retailers trying to cash in on the fact that loads of people do new PJs and book or DVD on Christmas Eve and have done for donkeys years. My Nana did it for her children, then she did it for us and I've continued it for mine. It's a great way of calming the children and getting them into pyjamas without any drama (quick, lets go for a bath so you can put them on!! - it basically cons them every year!). Even if they get Christmas print pyjamas they wear them all year round.

My girls (13yo twins) are most unimpressed at the rise of the box. I always boxed theirs because it stopped them getting muddled (twins, but different heights) and I hate, with a passion, wrapping. In the years when I could afford it I'd slip a book or a christmas CD in the boxes for reading before bed and having on on Christmas morning.

We also have a Catalan shitting log. DH's grandmother was Spanish and when he was first widowed he spent a Christmas over there with DS1. It's DS's job to teach/remind the younger kids the song and they all have a hoot and giggle over being allowed to swear (ish) in spanish.

One of the main traditions in our house is that "someone" sneaks into the bundle of Christmas pyjamas that I've bagged or boxed and puts in pyjamas for me. Which causes great hilarity as whoever of DH, DS1 (17) and DD's 1&2 (13) picks the cross out of the hat has to buy them on the sly and everyone else has to try and guess who has got them.

The two other traditions we have is that the children 'make' DH and I sit facing away from them while they wrap presents. It started when they were too little to be left unsupervised with scissors so we'd cut things for them. Now it's an amusing giggle as they rattle and rustle and we pretend to guess what they've bought.

The other is that the person who gets to put the star on top of the tree has their name picked out of a hat. I set up the hat and make a show of putting the 5 pieces of paper into the hat (youngest will still be too young this year). Only DS1 and DD2 have so far guessed that only one name actually goes into the hat and they do all get a fair turn at it, but without the knowledge that it'll be fucking years before it's their turn again :)

it is new that Christmas eve boxes have to be an actual box with " (child's name's) Christmas eve box" printed on it

Where do people keep all this stuff? do they all have MASSIVE attics or do they rent out storage units for the rest of the year?

We had Christmas pyjamas in the 1970s.

Although my very pair was a blue onesie with cats on that I got on Christmas Eve in 1987.

One of my least favourite Christmas 'traditions' is the frothing on MN about how other families choose to celebrate Christmas, in ways which, shock, horror, might actually be different from their own .

I especially love the 'oh, yes, that tradition is fine because we do that one on' but 'oh, no, that one is shit and can fuck off because we don't'.

I do not remember any shops stocking "CHRISTMAS" pjs in the 80s.
They sold PJS, which some people got as gifts/treats at christmas, but I don't remember any christmas themed ones

As a child I remember having nightwear as a Christmas present but definitely no gifts on Christmas Eve.

ElQuinto - we also have the log and the obligatory shitting man who nestles behind the tree (his poo fell off a few years ago due to bad wrapping and is now stuck on with bluetac )

I split from my ex husband almost immediately after Xmas and until then we'd followed is family traditions every year we'd been together. Now me and the DC have a couple - panto as a family and a book advent calender where you open a new picture book each night and read as a family before bed but that's about it. Oh, and new PJs although they're not Xmas'y.

When you have to swap nights each Xmas, it's not as easy but I do like to watch NORAD track Santa when they're with me on Xmas eve!

I think what I dislike is how the shops appropriate people's traditions and then sell them back to them with a huge helping of Fear of Missing Out so these things get out of all proportion and become yet another opportunity to purchase stuff.

I don't judge what anyone does with their Christmas at all. I genuinely believe for most people it is motivated by life and wanting to have as good a time as possible, but it's a bit shit that this gets exploited.

My Christmas Eve basket is the one I store the books in all year, display the books in at the start of advent, then produce filled with bedtime bits before bath.

Nobody is 'frothing'

Accusations of "frothing" always seem to turn up on this sort of thread.

I'm not seeing it myself.

Me neither.