12 Fun Christmas Traditions You Should Start With Your Family

If the holidays have started to bore you or stress you out, you should come up with a new tradition to get you excited again. Here are some real families on the weird, wacky traditions that make Christmas fun for them every year:

“On Christmas morning we aren’t allowed all our presents but rather we get one present every hour. It’s brilliant the anticipation lasts all day and you get to really enjoy each present. It’s also scary because as a kid you knew you were bound to whatever gift you picked for an hour so it was often a heart wrenching decision!” — Oreo_Sundaes

“We have a present wrapping competition most years, where we select one gift and try to wrap it extra fancy. Last year it was themed ‘any time or place.’ Some submissions were themed Jurassic Era, Seattle, the garbage bin, and the bathroom. The best submission ever was my brother and his girlfriend on the very first wrapping comp where they conveniently misheard and submitted a Christmas rap. They wrote and recorded a Christmas rap about the family and it even had backing music.” — snugglefiend

“On Christmas Eve, after all the wrapping paper was off, my whole extended family would have a wrapping paper-ball fight.” — butthole_hater

“We used to burn all our wrapping paper in a big bonfire. We live in a suburb and would just burn it in the street. We would also throw our old calendar in their too. Something about burning our past.” — rafiki530

“I have an aunt that spikes everyone’s coffee. She shows up with Starbucks, doses it up in the car, and then hands it out to everyone inside. The kids’ drinks are obviously not ‘topped off’ so I got a pleasant surprise after I turned 21.” — laoweistyle

“Chocolate for breakfast on Christmas day, because who needs a balanced breakfast!” — Emmahlee20

“Has to be an orange smashing contest at Christmas Eve dinner. Not the chocolate oranges like normal people, but real oranges. Everyone at the table gets one, and gets one hit to do as much damage as they can. My grandma is the judge, and the winner gets to open their present first the next morning.” — midshipmen89

“We try to disguise our presents in different size boxes, and try to make it as ridiculous and hilarious to open as possible. My favorite example was two years ago, my brother’s present to me was (at first) a box that was roughly the size of a printer. Then it was several boxes within a box (all boxes were wrapped of course), and then in the very last box was a deodorant stick. Then I had to unscrew the deodorant all the way until it popped out, and underneath that was a plastic bag that contained a gift card. Yeah, we waste a lot of wrapping paper, but it’s hilarious seeing all of us get frustrated trying to figure out what the present is.” — Mediocre-raptor

“When we are opening our presents, we turn the ceiling fan on high and throw crumpled up wrapping paper into it.” — spovz

“Even though my siblings and I are all moved out of the house, when we get to my mother’s house on Christmas Day she makes us wait at the top of the stairs so she can get a picture of us running downstairs to our pile of presents under the tree. We are all in our twenties.” — lucybluth

“We call each other by our middle names on Christmas Eve. I have no idea how it started.” — barnaclelips