goofy family customs...

yeah. i'm going to start the maraschino cherry jar out here. i asked my mom what the hell that was abot and got an answer!! it turns out that whenever she actually needed the damned things, she couldn't find them because they were hidden behind other food. so she decided that it must be good luck to have maraschino cherries, because the need for that jar will ensure that you'll always have food in the fridge to hide it. that's just profound.

 

our family seems to believe that being in a frantic state of mind is normal. it's basically an offence to be slow around them. everything has to be done now and if you have nothing to do you find something for the love of god before your head explodes!

they also seem to be obsessed with cosco. pretty boring, my non-immediate family is baha'i and sooo straightedge it hurts. makes going to the family dinners stoned a real buzzkill.

 

In my family if you have anything you need to say in private you go to the bathroom. My cousins used to bang on the door telling me and my cousin Sara to shut up and get out of the bathroom so they could use it.

At Christmas everyone takes turns opening a gift.

When I was younger and my grandmother was alive, we would have easter egg hunts.

On my dad's side any time the family gets together there is always a huge feast of food. We all love to eat! We have big guts, and big noses.

I can't think of anymore.

 

in my family we ridicule and humiliate our victims before we evicerate execute cook and eat them .....tradition is such a wonderfull thing .

 

one of the interesting things about having a "blended" family is that the traditions don't always match up. in my mom's family, christmas is a free for all. everyone opens their presents all at one time, which takes a total of less than five minutes. when she got remarried, her husband's tradition was that one person would pass out one present at a time, and everyone had to watch the recipient open their present.
i still think his way is boring a tedious, after all these years, lol

apparently, my family is more touchy feely than most. before leaving, you are required to give your mother/sister/aunt/whoever a kiss on the mouth. the catch is that we all check each other to make sure that no one has a cold sore, because we all get them, and no one wants to risk an outbreak. (no herpes jokes, you bastards, haha).

a recent tradition came about a few years ago...we were taking a sign language class as a family in order to communicate with my little niece. someone in the class signed something wrong, and the teacher freaked out and told them not to do it again. i don't know what the person was trying to sign, but apparently they signed the word "fag". now my family aren't generally homophobes, but it's become sort of a tradition to sign "you're a fag" to each other at odd occasions, like if you see someone in the family driving down the road. (if you're gay, and you're offended, don't be. it's just a joke, and we collectively have nothing against gay people. it's just sort of a funny prank, somewhat more original than giving each other the finger all the time.)

 

drinking shiraz in empty soda cans so my mentally ill family member won't 'catch us' oh and scrabble sometimes if one has had too much shiraz the scrabble bord will fly threw the air after confirming that quagy is not actually a word.

 

lol, i like this thread. It's bringing back great memories.

One of ours is that each kid gets a wee bit of money on their birthday - 10 cents for every year. So, in october i will be 20 - and I get TWO whole dollars. It's going to be quite exciting.

We also have the one present at a time christmas thing - i like that the best, it just feels more christmassey like that. Oh, and my brother and sister and I have a tradition of all having a kind of xmas eve sleepover, where we stay in the same room. Good memeories, awwww.

What else? Umm, there's the tradition of holding your breath when you go over a bridge. That's always thrilling, lol.

 

Quote-our family seems to believe that being in a frantic state of mind is normal. it's basically an offence to be slow around them. everything has to be done now and if you have nothing to do you find something for the love of god before your head explodes!
are we realted? we do one present at a time but my cousins don't so of course another tradition is to talk abou tthem like dogs when the leave.

 

anything in the hall closet (or any closet not in a bedroom) is communally owned until it is relocated. (i made that rule.. so i could steal jackets)


if you eat shredded beef on toast (i think thats its real name... we call it s.o.s.) and get the basil leaf on your plate, you do the dishes.

sunday we cook pancakes for breakfast.. its nothing but cereal and toast the rest of the week. (is that odd?)

anytime you go somewhere with a guy its a date. no matter the guy (with the exception of family members). thats really just my mom's calling. but once she says it, everyone else does too... its not fun.

 

all of these pleasant silly traditions are making me feel wierder and wierder about my family. hehehe


most of out traditions are dysfunctional.

 

My family doesnt have any customs or anything. Hmmmm.....
but whenever my mom's family would visit from Long Island we would order in chinese food. Yep, never failed. That's about as close to a custom as I got.

 

During Christmas dinner, we have to have those cracker things with the joke and paper crown. Everybody reads their joke out loud and we wear the hats all through dinner. It would be weird if we didn't.

 

every xmas and thanskgiving, my dad would carve the turkey, and my brother brad would bring his suture kit for my dad. however, my mother took away his carving right when he got blood all over her best turkey. now mom carves it, and my dad falls off the roof.

 

every christmas.....we eat a meal of swedish meatballs and german potato salad (i always make my mom make her special mashed potato casserole because i can't stand german potato salad).....

everytime we eat a big meal at my grandparent's house and everyone in the family is there....we all stand in a circle and join hands and pray.....i remember one time my uncle was praying and giving thanks for obediant children...and all of us cousins started laughing after he said that....

my family has this tradition of always remembering some of the funniest moments that have taken place over the years.....like the time my aunt and uncle brought a pinata back from mexico for all the cousins to beat up in my grandparent's driveway.....we bashed that thing until it fell apart, and inside, no candy....apparently they had forgotten that many pinatas do not come with the candy in them.....

my family are some of the funniest people i've ever met and i'm glad to be a part of the madness....

 

that pinata story reminds me of this one time i went with sam's family to the race track because they had satellite racing. but none of us had any idea that that meant we could bet on races shown on satelitte tv. so we were sitting there, eating our hot dogs when we realized what it was, so, laughing our asses of we started betting each other which track groomer would make it around the bend faster. it's one of those "you had to be there" moments, but we laughed SO HARD.


me and shubho, som's dad, would crack each other up forever by just pronouncing things wrong. som, kavi, and linda were just kinda rolling their eyes, but me and shobho would get to crying from such stupid entertainment.

then, at shobho's funeral, the family was seated to the side in a room with a curtain in front of it so that we would be able to grieve without being a show. and it's a damned good thing, because linda smacked a fly that landed on her, and her mother, bless her heart, knew little about hinduism, said in a shocked whisper "oh my god, that coulda been shubho!" never was a funeral more appropriately hilarious. shubho would have approved heartily.

 

Our family has "camp crappy" every summer. We can harldy stand each other but for some reason we all go to the same beach vacation every year and we've always called it that.