What is your strangest family tradition?
My3LilMonkeys wrote: DH and I got on this topic tonight because of Thanksgiving next week. Ever since I was about 7, it has been tradition in my family to listen to the song Alice's Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie on Thanksgiving. DH thinks we are  .
What strange traditions do your families have?
luvmykids replied: I don't think we have any weird Thanksgiving ones anymore, up until I left home we always had spaghetti with our turkey  My Italian stepdad insisted on spaghetti at just about every meal.
Some people might think we're weird for having Mexican food along with whatever we have for Christmas dinner...posole, tamales and lots of chile are necessities.
Twelve Volt Man replied: Each Christmas Eve, my family enjoyed steak tartare before our meal. When the meal came, we had Polish sausage (and turkey, too). My wife shudders at the thought of raw meat, so we haven't adopted the tartare tradition.
luvmykids replied:
Are you Polish? That reminds me of more weird traditions, but I don't remember a whole lot about them because when Babci died they did too...I do remember on Christmas Eve eating zure soup (sp? we called it "sewer" LOL) and stuffed cabbage.
Twelve Volt Man replied:
I am, though I love a good Polock joke more than anyone. For instance:
Q - How can you tell a Polish coyote?
A - He's the one who chews off three legs and is still caught in the trap.
luvmykids replied:
ROFL 
That explains your quick wit and wicked sense of humor 
5littleladies replied: Not Thanksgiving, but for every birthday with my dad's family we sing two songs. The traditional "Happy Birthday" and another varation with lyrics as follows-
"Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday,
People starving everywhere,
Misery and despair,
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday"
It's sung in this slow melancholy tune and it's a riot whenever we have new people celebrating birthdays with us because they think we are insane. 
Calimama replied: The youngest opens everyone's presents on Christmas.. but that's as weird as we get. DH's family is more nuts. 
Brias3 replied: We don't do anything TOO strange, but every Thanksgiving, we watch the movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles together after dinner and all, and then Christmas Eve we always do a white elephant gift exchange amongst the adults and then a huge, knock-down drag out wrapping paper fight amongst EVERYONE. It's really funny, but its a wonder how it still happens - with roughly 30 people in the house, I'm surprised my MIL doesn't faint over the war waged in her living room each year!
Anthony275 replied: everybody fighting with each other 
wcs40110 replied: We dont really have a tradition but we always listened to alices restaurant too but we live near the tracks and my moms name is Alice so...
MotherForever2043 replied: Not, a strange tradion though. We eat dinner than we all gather around the plasma and watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade..and eventually fall asleep while watching it. We're not really football people 
MyBrownEyedBoy replied: Nothing strange, but when I was a kid, my grandma's rule was that grandpa could only eat more if everyone else was still eating. My grandpa had a weight problem, he was a VERY big man. I remember him slipping seconds and even thirds of whatever he wanted to eat more of on my plate. So, long as I still ate it, he could too.
My dad used to wake me up playing Brown Eyed Girl on my birthday.
moped replied: Chinese food on christmas eve
Calimama replied:
Yummy!! I think DH and I need to start that tradition.
Brias3 replied:
We used to do that too! My grandma always had a big group over for Christmas Eve- her seven kids and their families, plus her sister's three kids and THEIR families, so we'd always order Chinese food and pizza! Nothing like a good old Chicago style pizza and some Chinese food with presents 
PrairieMom replied: My sister mother and I always jam out to the Jackson 5 Christmas album. like, totally jam out, singing into spoons like microphones and everything. usually when cleaning up after Christmas dinner.
Nina J replied: When I was a kid, we used to always get something water oriented from Santa. Since it's Summer in December here, and usually boiling hot on Christmas day. I remember my skipping rope that you attached the the garden hose, it had holes in it so water come out when you were skipping.
Although that tradition did have it's downsides, because some years it was cold. We got a trampoline one year and it was raining for about a week, my brother and I used to go outside every morning as soon as we woke up and dry the trampoline with towels. I loved that trampoline, the first time my brother was on it he was taking his jacket off but was to excited to stop bouncing. He ended up bouncing right off and landed on his head. It was hilarious He was okay, btw.
Hillbilly Housewife replied: Um, probably that we buy 2 goats every year.
grapfruit replied:
For birthdays our second song is:
Here's wishing you a happy day
In every way on your Birthday
Hope for many years to say
Greetings on this Ha-ppy Day!
lisar replied:
I always let Lexi and Raygen open my presents. Its just the look on there face that I love when the open anything. So I let them do mine.
On traditions we dont do anything out of the ordinary.
TheOaf66 replied: well thanksgiving tradition is to go to inlaws, watch football all day, eat big meal, go home---I know strange right?
jcc64 replied: We didn't have a fireplace in my house growing up, so on Christmas Eve, we used to watch a television show of a log burning in the fireplace. Is that hilarious or what?!
My2Beauties replied: When I was still living with my parents and when my parents were together, every Thanksgiving my dad would fly the turkey around the house and make gobble noises, he used to say LeaAnn LeaAnn Tom the Turkey is trying to get away.... it's still funny when I think about it, but as a teen I was embarrassed When he was in town last year, I don't think he did it now that I think about it, I can't remember 
Cece00 replied: We watch "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" every year @ Christmas. We've done it for years. I can recite the movie, but we still watch it every year.
We also can only open 1 present at a time while everyone watches. My mom likes for us to do it that way & she spoils us for Christmas so we go along It takes forever to open presents though.
redchief replied: Ever since the movie came out, it has become a Thanksgiving tradition to watch "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" while we tried our best to digest all of the food we just gorged ourselves with.
CantWait replied:
Awww Kelly that's so sweet. What a great memory. 
CantWait replied:
We have the same channel at Christmas time, it plays carrols, I love it.
mysweetpeasWil&Wes replied:
Yep, that would be ours. But also getting drunk. Thank god I don't have to attend Thanksgiving with the whole family anymore, but this is my memory of my childhood. My dad has three brothers and they all get really drunk and talk politics. And they yell!
Now that I have my own family, we don't do anything strange...at least I don't think so. I know DH has to make his Dutch xmas bread each year no matter what...It's this really dry, nutty, dried fruit thing that really isn't bad, but not all that great either. It's a must have for him. Strange for me. Oh and DH must have only white and silver decorations on the tree. It's what he grew up with, so we inherited the tradition. Although very pretty, it just seems strange to me to be so controlling about a dang tree.
Hey, I like beef tartar or tuna tartar or really anything tartar!
Hillbilly Housewife replied:
Story behind it is that ever since I've had my first job, I've sponsored a child for World Vision. Currently, I have 3 that we send money for every month. Since having a family, dh and I have bought 2 goats every year through the World Vision program to donate in third world countries where a family could benefit from having some goats. Fresh milk, fertilizer, the fur...
We always buy two, and hopefully they get a male and a female and can breed them for some extra $$.
They're only 75$ each. That's our paying it forward for the Christmas season.
CantWait replied:
That's awesome Rocky. I knew it was SOMETHING logical. 
Our Lil' Family replied:
Hey that's so weird, I just got the "catalog" in yesterday. I told DH I wanted a goat for Christmas and he looked at me like I didn't have a head!
I think we'll do immunizations this year.
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