A collection of holiday traditions that my family either used to do or still does. To help understand the dynamics, I have a fairly big family, but we hardly see each other, other than holidays. My parents are divorced, so my close family consists of my mom and my brother.
Happy New Year!
One of my favorite things, I can down a whole bottle of cider. Sometimes there is a toast, but not often.
Whether we light them or just watch others, it is a staple for new years. Usually something is on fire.
If everyone is feeling up for it, sometimes we will play games, whether that is Jackbox or tabletop poker, it gets very competitive.
Happy Valentine's Day!
Of course, we no longer celebrate like when I was younger, but we still sometimes exchange chocolate between our small family unit.
Who cares about the day of when the day after is so much sweeter, if we have the money, we go out and buy discount chocolate to celebrate.
Happy Easter!
As do most families who celebrate Easter, we of course have an egg hunt. Though as we grew up, they stopped. Though due to the closeness to my birthday and my love of games, my mom hid all my gifts(earrings, pins, and candy) in eggs one time.
Another Easter classic, my grandparents still send over small baskets of goodies for my brother and I every easter.
Happy Halloween!
We love Halloween in my family. My mom has handcrafted our costumes from the day we were born, and she still helps me if I need it. Even if we have nowhere to be, we still dress up.
My mom is allergic to raw pumpkin and my brother isn't usually a fan of it either, but they still join me. My mom wears gloves an my brother just hangs out. Then we seperate the seeds and bake them.
All through the month of October, and sometimes earlier, my mom, my brother, and I will start watching our list of Halloween movies. From Ghostbusters to The Corpse Bride, my mom has a curated list of holiday movies.
Here is a tradition that most families probably don't do, and we didn't start til recently. Since it is a pain to put up and take down the tree for Christmas, we put it up early for Halloween as well. We decorate it with some Halloween craft ornaments and garland. We also decorate the entire house as well(though our house is already pretty decorated with skulls and black cats all year round). While decorating I play my Halloween playlist.
Whenever we have candy for Halloween, whether it was from trick-or-treating or now from our own collections, we partake in tradefest. We set out all of our candy and trade with each other what we want.
Happy Thanksgiving!
We usually have a family dinner at my grandparent's house. My brother helps with the cooking and I help with the clean up.
My grandpa records the parade, then when we wake up, we watch it together at his house.
Whoever wishes, can keep the turkey bone to dry it. Then two people each take turns to place the bone on their nose and make a wish. They hold each hold onto one part and pull, whoever gets the bigger part is said to have their wish come true.
Merry Christmas!
We take down the Halloween decorations mid November and trade them out for the Chritmas decorations, though we used to just put up the Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving. It's similar to the Halloween decorating, I play my Christmas playlist and we decorate.
We usually have dinner with my grandparents on Christmas Eve. As children there was a tradition of "the elves" dropping off pajamas for us to wear, now we get a bag of various nicknacks and candy that fits us(Such as cat themed for me). After dinner we go home and open one present before bed.
Christmas morning is when my mom, my brother, and I open our presents. We have someone act as the "elf" who divides the gifts up, then we take turns opening them.
In the afternoon or evening, my brother drives myself and him to our other grandparents house, where we celebrate with our dad's side of the family.
Happy Holidays!
We sometimes go over to my grandparent's house to swim and eat, then watch the fireworks together.