02/12/2019

Our Director shares her family’s strange Christmas traditions

Sarah Price, Barracudas Director, gets super excited about Christmas. As we’re nearing that special time of the year, she tells us about the strange Christmas traditions that get the party started in her house.

Christmas as the song goes, is the most wonderful time of the year! For my family it’s definitely the firm favourite and it’s not just about the food, the decorations or even the gifts. They all have an important part to play but what makes our family’s Christmas really special and I’m sure for yours too, are the traditions.

It’s all about the kids

Since having children the traditions have grown in their importance. I didn’t realise that we were creating them until they were retold back to me one year by child number 2 “but that’s what we always do”. With a slightly pitiful look on her face that told me if we didn’t do it, Christmas wouldn’t be the same.

The standard traditions

Some traditions are part and parcel of a family Christmas, the panto, the making of mince pies, cake or pud, the trips to see Father Christmas in his grotto, the school nativity etc.

There’s also the modern ones like the race to get the online food order in and a time slot that doesn’t involve waking up or staying up at ridiculous hours. Or the charging around ‘real’ shops to find the essential Christmas food that was forgotten on the order or the stress caused by the sudden arrival of a guest you weren’t expecting.

But none of these surpass the uniqueness of the other traditions that many families have. They make Christmas special as they make your own household Christmas, your special family Christmas.

Our Christmas breakfast

Our longest running weird one is Christmas breakfast; we eat homemade sausage rolls. It’s only when I was older that I realised this wasn’t normal but this is what we did as a child and I have gladly kept it going with my family, especially as my Mum still supplies them (the pastry is amazing).

Elf Day

One that’s been going about five years now is that as a family we celebrate Elf Day. The actual day changes each year. In essence its quite basic; we watch the 2003 film Elf (directed by John Favreau) with friends, wear Christmas jumpers, eat the four Elf food groups whilst quoting most of the film script but the rules are you can’t watch the film until Elf Day. It also symbolically indicates the official start of the Christmas period in both households.

Alternative presents

One that’s creeping in, mostly encouraged by the children, is wrapping random food items from the kitchen cupboards and placing them under the tree. A gift of a potato or a tin of mushy peas is not unheard of.

On the naughty list

And of course, every Christmas morning the children have to go through the charade of ‘Oh no, he’s not been – you must have been bad!’. Wouldn’t be so bad but my children are now 16 and 13 years old and are fully aware of who has or hasn’t been!

They are some of ours, they are a bit strange but they bring us together as a family, which is what Christmas is all about. So c’mon, what are your family Christmas traditions? Bizarre, traditional or the in-between, let’s hear them!