1. “My dad sets up a camera at the bottom of the stairs and will video tape the entire Christmas morning. We still do this. And we’re not allowed to get out of bed until he gives us the go-ahead.”

2.  “My family has like 50+ nutcracker dolls, including 2 of them which are like 6 ft tall. Every year for Christmas we set them up on every table, shelf, and cabinet in our living room. It’s pretty creepy, but also not Christmas without them.”

 3. “Family’s traditions include decorating October 1st because we go all out and my whole house flashes to music.

It takes us all of October and November to decorate. On Christmas morning my dad turns the Yule log that is on tv on. We don't have a fireplace but it never fails. And no one is allowed out of bed till all grandparents get to my house."

4. “We get a cupcake or something and sing happy birthday to Jesus.”

5. “We watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and Charlie Brown Christmas each year. We also have a special stuffed Christmas moose with crazy eyes that sits on the mantle.”

6. “My family and I get each other Christmas pajamas and we open them on Christmas Eve so we can wear them that night! When I was younger, my mom used to say that if I didn't wear my Christmas pjs, Santa wouldn't come.”

7. “We sing O come O come Emmanuel every day and we add a verse every week. There is a very solemn feeling every time we do it! Also, we go deer spying, and guess the amount that we are going to see before we start!”

8. “We draw names for sibling’s gifts & each sibling has to guess who they got right or they can’t open the gift until the end.”

9. “When my brother was 10 he got the movie series of Kill Bill for Christmas. Every Christmas since, my family watches both of the Kill Bill movies on Christmas day.”

10. “Every year we put a piece of charcoal in my dad’s stocking.”

11. “We hide a pickle ornament in the Christmas tree and whoever finds it first gets an extra present.”

12. “We always have peppermint pancakes for breakfast, we open our stockings one person at a time, put everything away, and then ONE AT A TIME slowly open presents so that we literally take all day”

13. “My mom puts an orange in everyone’s stocking... I asked why and she said that it was just something her mom did.”

14. “My family all gets matching pajamas that represents something iconic or funny one of us did or said that year”

15. “Every year, my whole family writes a play and performs it on Christmas Eve. 

With auditions, rehearsals, costume fittings, and everything! Sometimes it's a Nativity-themed play, sometimes it's like a cheese-y hallmark movie, and once we even did A Christmas Carol! We invite friends and extended family over to watch and at the end hand out plastic "Oscar" awards to the funniest/most dramatic/most encouraging/most helpful "actors". It's always been a real hoot, but it wasn't until I was older that I realized other families didn't do this. It's just my family that's extra."