Christmas day
My family have a lot of bad habits and worn out jokes but I think Christmas is the only thing we have by way of a proper tradition.

I am the eldest of 6 grandchildren and my sister the second-eldest. As a result, when we were small we were the only kiddies in the family, and my grandad would come over for christmas dinner. This started a tradition that we would wake up, go and wake up mum and dad, and open up our stockings before breakfast. We were not allowed to open any christmas presents at all until grandad had come over and we had had christmas dinner.

This tradition carried on even once other grandchildren were born and grandad started going to other houses for christmas, and we still do it now even as adults. It makes christmas last the whole day instead of all being over at 4 in the morning!

My sister and I had our own private ritual of waking up ridiculously early, alerting the other that father christmas had been and then opening up our stockings and meticulously putting everything back in the same order so mum and dad couldn't tell we'd already seen everything. Oh, and it became tradition that you had a mug, a chocolate santa, some underwear and a Lego kit no matter how old you were or what other presents Santa bought.

Boxing Day is as big as christmas except all the aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents get toegther for present swapping and huge arguments. The argument last year was so big that I think that tradition has now officially ended - and I missed that one, as I was away for Christmas. Bugger, it sounded like a good 'un too.
(sanity challenged, Fri 21 Nov 2008, 22:17, 1 reply)

an ugly floral nightie and a pair of slippers
every fucking year.
i don't even wear nighties, but i've got a drawer full of the damn things.
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Fri 21 Nov 2008, 22:22, closed)