to ask what weird and inexplicable little Christmas habits your relatives have?

[Greensleeves]

My stepdad always cut deep crosses into the sprouts, to make sure they got extra waterlogged and mushy

My mother used to put a tangerine in the toe of the stocking, then all the stocking gifts/choc, then fill up any remaining space with tangerines and apples so it "looked full". So if it was a slow year you ended up with a big pile of fruit.

My dad starts on the brandy an hour before Christmas dinner "to numb the stomach" so he can fit more food in.

Any weird and wonderful Christmas quirks in your families?

I think the satsuma in the toe of the stocking is the law, isn’t it? We used to get monkey nuts too (maybe mum and dad were having a joke at us being monkeys 😂). I don’t think we do anything weird, but when stuff is normal to your family then you don’t know it’s weird.
Christmas Eve used to be spent crossing sprouts, until Jamie (or Delia?) said it wasn’t necessary. The nation was dubious

Tangerine in the toe is the law, definitely, it's the filling the rest of the stocking with the contents of the fruit bowl that used to confuse me! I mean, I like fruit, but

Buying each other cards. Cards for me are only for people you aren't seeing over Xmas. So we have to send PIL a specific parents one from us and a grandparents one from DC. And a sister one and an aunty one for SIL. And we receive 6. Son and DIL ones, grandaughter and grandson ones, Brother and SIL ones, neice and nephew.

It's ludicrous.

My fil makes Christmas cakes for everybody and I mean EVERYBODY. We have one, he has one, he made my sister one, he made the guys who do his MOTs one... plus 37 others (ACTUAL NUMBER!) It's rather lovely but haven't the heart to tell him that it's the bottom rung of the Xmas food stakes.

Stepdad likes to choose a non xmassy film that’s on and make us all watch it in silence, rather than just a xmassy film on in the background with chatting over the top. In previous years we have watched the accountant, taken and White House down.
If anyone tries to talk he shushes them, so inevitably one by one we file into the kitchen and escape!
It’s such a strange thing and pulls the mood down a bit!

We’ve an American friend staying who always smokes some cannabis resin Xmas Day. She’s absolutely bereft that it isn’t legal here...it’s evidently legal to buy it in Colerado.

Thankfully judging by the smells from my neighbour’s garden in the summer they know where to get it so I messaged my neighbour. My American friend is now happy with three special cigarettes, . I don’t know how much it cost her but she seems happy enough.

We're sadly bereft of weirdness these days but when my DGM was alive, from about my 10th birthday when they finally got a house with a proper dining room we were all required to go to her house for Christmas dinner. She was an enthusiastic, well meaning but fuckawful cook Sliceable gravy, burnt turkey, custard you could have grouted the bathroom with... We would have a 'sufference' meal on Christmas day and then host on Boxing day so that everyone got a really good meal.

If anyone tries to talk he shushes them, so inevitably one by one we file into the kitchen and escape!

Think I might plan a mass exodus as soon as he put it on. Whose house are you in when this occurs?

@DappledThings my DP's immediate family do this too. They're such a small family and see each other all of the time it still seems v odd to me!

We use to have tangerine in stocking as a kid too and gold coins

We get drunk and sit in pjs most the day

Fair enough, we didn’t have a whole fruit bowl in our pillowcases 😂

I think the cross in the bottom of sprouts was to help them cook, back in the days when sprouts were slightly larger and bought from the market / grown yourself. Today's tiny sprouts don't need such treatment. But old habits die hard!

You have to put a cross in sprouts. It's the law.

They all have to sing the lion sleeps tonight. In unison. There are even song sheets. 😂😂😂 I love it. Can’t wait for later today! (I am in Asia so Merry Christmas!!)

On Christmas eve we have to watch the following
Frog chorus
Christmas Tom and jerry
Snownky and snowdog
Snowman

We open our presents one at a time, in age order, youngest to oldest. Takes about 4-5 hours sometimes when there can be up to a dozen of us. The first time DH experienced it he fell asleep 😂

A side dish of sliced and fried mushrooms and onions on the xmas dinner

@StylishDuck we do this! And we have a designated 'postman'. When I met dh and they opened presents willy nilly I nearly fainted

AnyOldPrion his 😬

@cheesenpickles I'll never forget the time my cousin brought her new husband and he started opening a present as soon as he was handed it. Everyone stopped talking and stared at the poor guy in horror. You could have heard a pin drop

@StylishDuck OMG, how awkward.

Christmas Eve beefeater
New jimmies for all the females in our family on Christmas Eve
I spend each Christmas Eve making. Sausage rolls and trifle.... DS can get involved if she must

*DD I don’t have a DS

Cooking the turkey (for far too long) on Christmas Eve and serving it stone cold with warm bisto gravy.

Absolutely disgusting and we've only ever had Christmas dinner there once.

dappledthings and curbsideprophet my in laws do this too! It drives my husband mad but I think it's quite funny, we run out of side space for them pretty early on though.