One of the great things about Christmas are the quirky little traditions that families adopt and look forward to every year. One popular tradition is opening Christmas pyjamas on Christmas Eve and enjoying mugs of hot chocolate and watching Christmas movies as a family. But some families have fun, or meaningful traditions that you may not have considered and might want to add to your festive celebrations.

Here are some of our favourites shared by Redditors:

My family has a tradition of leaving riddles on cards and guessing what the gift is before opening.

We go around 1 by 1, reading our hint out loud so everyone can guess, then open it and show the room.

Ends up taking like 5 hours for everyone to get through their gifts, but it’s always a fun time. (MyNameIsRay)

Every year my wife and I buy an ornament for our tree that corresponds with something that happened that year. So we have a tree filled with all of these weird wacky ornaments like a tennis ball (we started playing tennis that year), swedish chef (Europe trip), Ship Captain Nutcracker (our first cruise), amongst many others. It’s such a fun tradition in December to debate what we to get and then finding something. And then reliving them all when we put them up. (Barrucuda)

Every Christmas the kids in the house have wrapping paper put over the entrances to their rooms so they get to rip through it in the morning. It originally started as a way to keep a certain kid in when he kept coming out early and opening presents before everyone was awake. (Essendxle)

My brother and I stay at my mother’s house on Christmas Eve with our families every year. We still sit at the top of the stairs on Christmas morning until my mother tells us we can come down to the living room to see what “Santa” left us. We’re both in our 30s and our wives and kids now sit on the stairs as well. It’s getting pretty crowded but I wouldn’t have it any other way! (ScoobJetson)

Every year my family buys each other member a gag/joke/small gift, then writes a poem about it, for the recipient to read on Christmas Eve. It’s probably the highlight of the entire season for me, as it’s always filled with laughter at how terrible we all are at poetry. No matter how old we all get, this is a really fun way to bring everyone back to that root joy of spending time together. (OneParticularHarbour)

My parents were broke when I was a kid, but you’d never know it from Christmas. They always went all-out, put money on credit cards, etc. One Christmas we were particularly broke, but dad went out and spent (probably most) of his paycheck on last minute gifts.

When we got home, my mom had been with us all day and since there was no money, she hadn’t gone food shopping. All we had were some cheap hot dogs and canned beans. (KyussSun)

My parents put the beans in a pot over the fire, grabbed the hotdog cooker from when we went camping, and threw the dogs on over the fire too. My sister and I loved it so much, we did it again the following Christmas.

Eventually we weren’t quite so poor. The two-dollar AnP hotdogs became Nathan’s, then Sabretts, then butcher Bratwursts. The beans went to BnM, then eventually fancy gourmet shit. But my sister and I are now adults with our own families, and even on years where we’re not together, our entire family has hot dogs and beans on Christmas Eve.

The tradition in our house was whatever you got for Christmas, you had to wear to the pub at lunchtime on Christmas Day. I’ve been to the pub in pjs, 4 pairs of socks, running vest and shorts, etc etc (SpeedyGoneGarbage)

A tradition we had when I was a child, and one I’ll be continuing with my children when I have them, is the Christmas Eve box. For Christmas Eve, we were given one gift early, and it was a box with Christmas pajamas, a mug, hot chocolate mix, popcorn, and a Christmas movie. We would get to open it around lunchtime, and we’d spend the rest of the evening in our new jammies having cocoa and movies together. (Mrs_carroll)

When we were younger, my parents had a tradition with us. We would always go out into the front yard with my dad to find the “perfect” pine cone. Maybe a week or two before Christmas, we planted the pine cone in a pot and watered it. Then overnight, it would become this magnificent, huge (to my young eyes), and fully decorated Christmas tree. It only worked in December and we were always told it was the Christmas magic. Then my sister and I figured it out when we found pine needles in my parents’ car haha. (theatrekid96)

On Christmas Eve we’re each given a present early. It’s always pajamas and once everyone has opened their present the Pajama Races begin. Everyone runs to their respective rooms and puts on their pajamas then races back to the tree. There is no prize for the winner except bragging rights.

Then there is a final present that has been wrapped multiple times with a ton of tape. We all stand around the kitchen table and attempt to unwrap it one at a time. Except you have to put on mittens and a Santa hat before attempting to unwrap it. The person to your left is rolling dice and if they get doubles then you stop trying to unwrap it and pass the mittens and hat to them so they can try. This game becomes very loud and fast so you need to keep on your toes. It keeps going around in a circle until someone is successful. The gift is always a board/card/dice game and we play the game until its time to go to bed. My siblings and I are all grown now, but we’ll probably continue to play this with our parents until we have spouses to bring home…then make them play as well. (legalizeskooma)

The family Goober award! Throughout the year, the previous winner tracks all the goofy mistakes family members make , i.e. locking yourself out of the house in your underwear when the trash collector is around the corner. Then at the big Christmas gathering, we all sit down and the previous year’s winner presents all the family “goober nominees” leading up to the winner, the most laughable of them all, who gets awarded a decorated 3′ tall trophy. (ellowcard417)

Every year my grandpa reads our family The Night Before Christmas. He has Christmas ornaments that go along with the book so everyone was handed an ornament and you put it on the tree when your phrase was read out. (Carocyon-Avius)

My family has the Christmas Elephant.

The Christmas Elephant was the animal that Mary rode into Bethlehem on (donkey lobbyists disagree) and brings presents to good children on Christmas Eve. Bad children get a pile of elephant dung.

Every year we decorate the house with Red and Gold elephants and wait for the Christmas Elephant to come.

I love my weird family. (kitskill)

My parents chuck a gift wrapped board game through the front door from the yard and claim it’s “from the elves”. As kids it was meant to keep us occupied in the other room so they could sip wine and eat snacky snacks with the other adults undisturbed.

You would think we would have learned by now, but my sisters and I are now in our 30s and still have to duck when the door flies open and dad whips a board game in to the front hall like a frisbee. Except now, our parents deem us cool enough to actually play the game with us. 🤣 (nindiesel)

This started about 10 years ago. My youngest sibling would not let my mom remove a large, plush bat from the ceiling that Halloween. So… She started making costumes for it for every holiday. We called it the Holiday Bat.

I now have my own Holiday Batty hanging from the ceiling with a homemade Santa hat and beard. (pixiicide)

Crap N Wrap.

Each year, we all have this tradition of crap n wrap. Where everyone has a £5 budget, and you must find the most useless, pointless gift you can possibly buy, and wrap it up in crap like black sack, newspaper, brown paper, supermarket carrier bag etc.

Right after the christmas dinner, we get out the Crap N Wrap gifts. Theres been some hilarious gifts over the years, but my all time fave has to be the mini ironing board for socks! It was big enough for quite literally one sock! (sirfletchalot)

What Christmas traditions do your family have?