55 Family Traditions That Range From Wholesome To Completely Bizarre

My family usually has small Thanksgiving meals at our mom's house. For a few years now, my brother and I have decided to always wear our finest argyle sweaters and no pants.

I really can't say what caused it, and to me it wasn't weird until I recently discovered only my family does this. But, we sing two verses to Happy Birthday. The second verse is to the same tune only the words are, "many of them to you, many of them to you, many of them dear so-and-so. Many of them to you!" We also sing the count down (1-2-3!) before blowing out the candles.

Nothing like extending an already awkward, uncomfortable situation.

Don't know what caused it, but on your birthday, this is how gifts are given.

Somebody else in the family is chosen as "gift master". We don't really have a term for it, but that's probably close enough. The gift master then takes the presents one at a time and places them on the birthday person's head. They then say "Heavy, heavy, over your head. What are you going to do with it". The birthday person has to guess what they are going to do with the gift before the gift can be removed from their head.

One year when I was little there was a HUGE box wrapped up on my birthday. I was so excited because I had always wanted a doll house and what else would be in a 3'x 4' box? My dad and my uncle both had to lift thing over my head because it was so heavy.

Everyone in the family chanted "Heavy, heavy, over your head. What are you going to do with it?".

I practically screeched, "PLAY WITH IT!!!".

They placed it back down on the ground and I ripped open the present. Out popped my older brother wearing that mask from the scream movies. Everyone started laughing as I began to cry, both in terror and in sadness because I didn't get a dollhouse again.

Looking back though, that was still an excellent birthday prank. Since then, I've always tried to disguise my presents in ways that my brother is unable to guess what type of gift he is getting when I place it over his head.

Every night at dinner, we would go around the table and say our "hi-lo's". Basically, the best and worst part of our day.

We celebrate half birthdays, with half a cake and one present.

We bake a giant loaf of bread, cut it up into tons of pieces, dip it in olive oil and throw it at each other outside. Never heard of anyone else do this but my family does. Once you get past the extreme strangeness of the idea, its a lot of fun!

At Christmas time, instead of getting the Christmas tree out,my father used to get out an aluminium pole....

Arranged marriage.

Watching Christmas Vacation every Christmas eve.

My family watches Mean Girls on Thankgiving.

When my family and I color eggs for Easter we create an "ugly egg". Hold one hard boiled egg off to the side until all other eggs are colored. Mix all colors into a bowl and deposit the last egg into mixture. Place in fridge overnight (or at least a couple of hours). It's called an "ugly egg" but I've yet to make one that was actually ugly. Try it, it's pretty cool.

Every "family holiday" (Christmas, Thanksgiving, 4th of July, etc.) my two brothers and I have a contest to see who can make the adults curse the most. I am still reigning champion with grandparents total being 35 in one night and parents being 47 in one night.

We have a family roast every Sunday, but it is much more than just the food we eat. Generally it ends up much like a celebrity roast where one member of the family gets ridiculed and had hilarious (embellished) stories told about them for then hour while everyone else laughs. It's always in good humor and my mum is usually on the receiving end every second week, but the week feels like it's missed something without the joyous 6pm Sunday banter.

Whenever anyone turns 40, weather permitting, everybody at the party gets naked and streaks around the place. We've been doing this since the 70s, naturally. No idea how it started.

My grandma and aunt have an awesome Christmas tradition. After everyone's done unwrapping their gifts and moves into the dining room for dinner, they stay behind and say they're gonna clean up. This is when they decide to swap out their gifts with others they liked better (sometimes ones they bought themselves!) and bring them out to their car. Then they join us for dinner as if none of us will notice...

This has been going on for the past four years. Everyone else just thinks it's ridiculous and let's em get their rocks off from swapping out a few $20 sharper image gifts.