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!

We have an elf, but DD said that everyone was asking her what she got in her advent calendar and she felt a bit left out because we have a reusable one with a bit of nativity scene each day.
But I don't actually think that the parents who bought their children Lego calendars, or put a little sweet or toy or pen or fancy rubber in each compartment were doing it to be flashy and show off and make the children with simpler calendars feel bad. I think that they thought that would do something fun and nice for their child. And I hope that they feel the same way about our elf.

If your dislike of elves is worth your child being sad and excluded....

WHAAAAAAT?!?

Actual lolz.

Am thoroughly enjoying these...
www.familydaystriedandtested.com/completely-inappropriate-elf-shelf-ideas/

Well said CharleyFarleysAunt

What's magical about hiding a pound shop elf round the house? Why should children feel sad or excluded from the festive season because their parents don't believe hiding a pound shop elf round the house contributes to the magic of Christmas in any way, shape or form? How is this even a thing?

I've noticed there's a lack of Boxing Day specific magical things to buy that could easily be exploited as I think the advent and Christmas Eve markets are possibly saturated now. Perhaps special leftovers plates, Boxing Day presents and cards and wrapping paper, Boxing Day onesies, Boxing Day scarves and hats for a brisk walk, a gnome on his own helping recycle wrapping paper by making elaborate origami every night for 12 nights...

Waaaayyyy ahead of you there, HandbagCrab! Even when I was young we had a special Boxing Day with different plates and games. Agree it is ready to be ramped up, though. How about a whole new decorating theme, which could be done overnight to surprise everyone? It wouldn't take five minutes to redo the tree, hang some different curtains, reconfigure the outside lights - easy peasy!

(Actually, magazines suddenly have a sea change for New Year: suddenly all your tableware, soft furnishings etc are tartan and you've miraculously moved into a croft in the Highlands.)

It wouldn't take five minutes to redo the tree, hang some different curtains, reconfigure the outside lights - easy peasy!

We need to come up with some twee little story, preferably about a left-out reindeer, or a sad little pixie to market this Boxing Day tat properly. Maybe something about poor little Fluffy the reindeer, who was too small to fly with Santa's sleigh on Christmas Eve, and his friend Puketastic the Pixie decided that 26th would be their SPECIAL DAY with an activity on the hour, every hour.

And you'd have to do this, because you wouldn't want to disappoint or exclude the kiddies, Puketastic and little ickle Fluffy, would you?

(rushes off to patent office)

Marvellous , Luna. I can see the Christmas ad now.

Just thought of another modern "tradition": the multiple Christmas Dinner options. Surely it's a turkey. A Turkey. (With a sad nut roast grudgingly supplied for vegetarian guest.) What's all this rib of beef, saddle of lamb, ten bird roast as well ? Who on earth has an oven big enough to deal with anything more than a large turkey, a tray of roast potatoes (NOT "roasties" - shudder), a tray of parsnips and sausages and bacon shoved in round the side?

You're doing it wrong. You need to take what people already do, and build on it. So, Boxing Day in our house means ice-cream soda for breakfast (not a widely-shared tradition), leftovers, a longish walk or bike ride, but other than that, extreme sloth. So Boxing Day should be the day for the sort of loungewear you can wear outside. And the Boxing Day Robin who can be only be seen outside, and sends each lucky child a little spotting guide to winter wildlife. Actually, he will deliver a little Boxing Day Box, with loungewear, hangover and indigestion remedies, spare batteries, birdseed, chutney, thank-you cards, a special thank-you card-writing pen, and some stamps. When the box is opened, everyone will happily scamper off in their soft, elastic-waisted trousers to write their thank you cards before choosing a picturesquely located postbox to post their cards from. They will leave out the birdseed to thank the Robin, and trek off to spot birds and plants and stuff on the five mile hike to the country postbox before coming home to a turkey sandwich with Boxing Day chutney.

Can you imagine the look of joy on people's faces when they receive the set of thank you letter stationery and box of Rennies for their Boxing Day treat? Hmmmph, but it is an idea for sil's Xmas present...

You do what MIL does. Cook the turkey on Christmas Eve and have it cold on Christmas Day. Same with the beef. Then for Christmas lunch you serve up cold turkey, cold beef, Bisto gravy so thick you could dance on it, overcooked veg and greasy roast spuds.

Delicious.

We only have turkey here. Never had anything else tbh although my parents will sometimes get a goose or pheasant if they're having Christmas dinner on their own. We all love ham but it's not a Christmas dinner item - we'll get one and cook it between Christmas and New Year and it lasts forever. My kids call it the "never-ending gammon".

We always had new pj's on Christmas Eve, it was tradition to have a bath, hairwash (even if not a Sunday!) and wear new pj's to bed.
I got DP and DD a Christmas Eve Box two years ago (we always open a present on Christmas Eve). This years will contain new Game of Thrones pj's for DP and a bag of peanut m and m's and for DD a new pair of Tesco Tigger Christmas pj's and a selection box. I'll get pj's too (from the cat).

I have to confess at this point that we do the whole elf thing, and that the elf does, in fact, leave a set of thank-you cards behind when she leaves...

I agree with you OP and refuse to add any more traditions. Its always just me, DH and the 2 DCs on christmas day and I refuse to fall for this making it perfect nonsense. We have pizza or cold meats/nuts on christmas eve, the DCs play a game where they have to find one of their presents with us saying warm or cold depending on where they are and then we watch a film. Bed when they like. Stockings on christmas morning. Croissants for breakfast. Kids open one present. Lunch will be much like a normal roast as no one likes Turkey, I plan on laying the table in som way though. Open presents after lunch. Pudding late aftenoon and snacks if hungry so no more cooking. By boxing day we are pretty much back to normal.

If we do boxing day pixies and perhaps new year fairies I reckon we could all be millionaires by this time next year! :)

I'm just reading the thread properly and it's so lovely to read everyone's own traditions and the way they started.

One of ours is not Christmas Day itself as my (now adult) DSCs always have the day itself with their mum. But we have a day or two with them some other time during the festive season with lots of games and stuff.

A few years ago DSD was babysitting while DH and I went to a funeral, and when we got home she had made a music quiz on the computer for us, which really cheered us up. So she decided to do another one that Christmas, and now we take turns each year to make one. All fancy with PowerPoint embedded videos music clips and all sorts. We link it to the telly to get it on a bigger screen and it's all very competitive with a silly prize for the winner :o

I love seeing how traditions evolve too. It's funny, I've always said we have no natural traditions (my parents could never be arsed with Christmas) and I gleefully nicked the whole Christmas Eve jammies (NOT Christmassy ones though) thing from MN, which has come to include a book like jolly Christmas postman or a DVD to watch before bed - this year the Mr Bean Christmas special :o. We introduced the Vicar of Dibley one to the kids a couple of years ago and now we watch it loads from October onwards. And quote it all year round :o I think I may have to get some twiglets ready in the cupboard for mr bean. Proper ones, not sticks with marmite.

But actually things have become traditions here on their own anyway - like the quiz I mentioned above. DH and I drinking Baileys while building whatever present needs building (playmobil usually) - it's not Christmas Eve without baileys now :o but it doesn't need special cups to have it from or whatever.

I would happily play carols on the piano all year round - I'm an atheist but can't get enough of carols. But I tend to leave it till the clocks change in October and then play them on cold dark evenings. We've never had a proper "let's have a Christmas singalong" session at home, which I'd always dreamed about - but I think it'd feel forced and fake. Whereas when I play at random times the kids often join in singing and grab the instrument box to join in etc. One carols CD gets played frequently this time of year - DD even falls asleep to it. Annie Lennox Christmas Cornucopia. Although I now have to skip Coventry Carol since she asked what it was about and I told her. Oops.

And Christmas breakfast. A few years ago DCs asked for pancakes for breakfast and on a whim I rearranged the strawberries and whipped cream to make a hat and beard, and made eyes/nose etc so the pancakes became splodgy, lopsided santa faces. But the kids went nuts for them so now I am stuck doing sodding santa pancakes every year :o

We put top trumps in the stockings for a couple of years running and now I don't think we will ever get away with not including some :o they get used all year round though.

Sorry for the waffle. It just makes me happy to realise that actually my family DOES have some proper, true-to-ourselves family traditions that no Pinterest page told me I needed.

I know it wasn't the point of the thread but thanks OP :)

I love the creativity and family-ness of a lot of the ideas, but also have a healthy smigen of cynicism too

We have a pre-Christmas-Christmas with my friend, which I love. We cook only the bits of Christmas food we love vs any kind of balanced meal, (roast potatoes play a LARGE part :) ), and we open presents and do crackers and generally have fun.

It started because I used to have horrible actual christmasses with no joy or so this one was just the fun bits with lovely friend vs the horrible stress of family. Now I have DS too and he loves it too ... it's today actually!

And then other stuff like Christingle, & Carol services...

A home made advent calendar which consists of tiny pockets with material figures and trees, stars etc, which DS takes out day by day and builds a Velcro nativity scene

And panto of course, that's one of my absolute favorites :)

And eeek I'm afraid I do do elf on a shelf, but he comes at a completely random day somewhere near the end of advent as I can't keep it up for 24 days! And I've rewritten the book (over invested, moi?!) so he's just here to visit not to be a spy or a tattletale, and no 'scenes' made, he hides in funny places and the cool thing is how he mysteriously moves ... I do worry about how I let DS know he's not real yet keep Father Christmas real as the elf isn't that plausible really!

We do new Jim jams on Xmas eve but it's not a big showy for Instagram Christmas eve box..find the photo ops oh so tacky.
My favourite Christmas tradition is all the kids piling into my bed Xmas morning yes even the grumpy teenagers and opening out stockings up together, the daft little presents new deodorant.. socks it's all the best bit for us