21 People Reveal Their Weirdest Family Traditions
These real accounts of bizarre familial traditions will convince you that there really is no normal.
1. “Fuck pillows—my brother and I used to bury our teeth for the tooth fairy.”
— Noah, 22
2. “When we travel outside of the States, all of our names change. My dad, Luis, goes by Luciano, AKA Piccolo Pablo. I’m Goldfarb. Mom’s Lazlo. Older brother’s Oh Long Johnson.”
— Dee, 20
3. “Saluting each other when we sit down for a meal…no idea who started that.”
— Sloane, 23
4. “Favoring my older brother in every situation possible.”
— Georgia, 21
5. “Pretending to enjoy overcooked turkey on Thanksgiving. And ham on Christmas.”
— Dean, 23
6. “When we were little, the last kid to finish their veggies had to write a haiku dedicated to the poor veggies they neglected. My parents figured if we weren’t healthy, at least we’d be literary.”
— Isla, 22
7. “We host an extremely competitive paddleball tournament every Thanksgiving for our extended family. Someone always cries.”
— Felix, 18
8. “Eating dinner at 11 fucking p.m. every Christmas Eve because no one in my family has their shit together.”
— Mae, 22
9. “We used to do coordinated family Halloween costumes. One year, we dressed up as different parts of the eye. I was a pupil. My mom was an iris. Little sister was eyelashes. Dad was a cornea. It was weird.”
— Julienne, 19
10. “Everyone in our family has their own jingle. A theme song, if you will. Especially our dogs.”
— Maddox, 20
11. “We enforce a strict No Cold Drinks After 6 p.m. rule. Bad for digestion. Grandma science.”
— Sage, 24
12. “We eat Thanksgiving dinner at 2:30 p.m. No one knows why. No one questions it.”
— Stella, 23
13. “My family rescues black cats and kittens in October (they get dumped a lot around Halloween). Our house is full of black cats.”
— Luca, 19
14. “We always left celery and ginger ale out for Santa’s reindeer.”
— Wren, 25
15. “To get hyped up for pony camp, my sisters and I coordinated a dope stairwell dance routine to ‘When I Grow Up’ by the Pussycat Dolls. Did it every morning for a few summers. Think Nicole Scherzinger meets children’s opera. Very hip.”
— Taluna, 21
16. “Yelling ‘SCORE!’ whenever we see a yellow car on the highway. And ‘RACCOON SCORE’ whenever we see a dead raccoon…”
— Stevie, 20
17. “Telling ghost stories on Christmas before we open our presents. Whoever tells the scariest story gets to open the first present, of course.”
— Simone, 22
18. “My parents are English professors and, naturally, used to be obsessed with our family ‘Like’ Jar (a quarter for every extraneous like). Whenever we got to $10 dollars in the jar, the last ‘liker’ had to match it with another 10. Kinda fucked, right?”
— Jax, 20
19. “Our dentist parents stuff our Christmas stockings with ‘fun’ dental hygiene products.”
— Edie, 19
20. “Our parents used to give us ‘sister presents’ on each of our birthdays so we wouldn’t get jealous. We blame our adult brathood on them.”
— Lulu, 22
21. “My siblings and I watched ‘Silence of the Lambs’ way too young because my mom was a film major in college and thought it was ‘good for us.’ It became an annual, extremely traumatizing tradition.”
— Cruz, 19 
