Unique family traditions and quirks that make you smile

Thanks @Ellamary98.

Bought the Quality Streets last week when I saw them in Woolworths. Some years they've been very hard to find so as long as the use by dates are OK I grab them when I see them!

My father created a nonsense word family song - sung in (in four parts!) on car trips. I can still sing it word perfect after more than 60 years. Have to write down all my wretched work passwords though............... : )

@Nadi we unwrap on our bed too- 5 big kids and two cats. We keep saying 'this must stop' - last year someone sat on my jam toast- but we carry on. :)  AND, my husband's only dessert is also the infamous trifle. It's a family joke, because it is rarely successful, despite his crowing!

@tigerbeth, my 14-year old loves the Lynx!
@Artferret My children always wanted a novelty birthday cake, but it was a fail every time I tried! I'm a good baker, but rubbish at the decoration!
@kmakm My husband is English- Quality Streets at Christmas and Christmas tree gifts still reign.
I can only imagine how it must be to lose your sister and all those sweet memories shared. I miss my mother so much at Christmas- the memories of baking together and preparing the big family meal can be overwhelming, even 7 years on. I bake our Christmas cakes on my own now. She always marked the recipe with each year it was used, and it makes me teary when I see the end of her handwriting and the beginning of my own. I draw enormous comfort from baking recipes she has handwritten- and even some of my grandmother's.

So many good ones above that I may just have to adopt! Love the clap for every year of age!

Yes, when I am sick, and my thoughts turn dark, it's not my accomplishments that make me smile and comfort me, it's those quirky family things proving that it really is the little things in life that count. A few others:

• youngest in the family always places the star on top of the christmas tree.
• Birthday presents are always unwrapped on mum and dad's (me and hubby's bed) first thing on birthday morning. With five of us and four dogs it gets very crowded during the unwrapping.
• with my youngest 19 we still have an easter egg hunt with cryptic clues that take my husband a week to write. The clues are all about things that have happened during the year, e.g. the step where so-and-so fell and chipped his tooth etc.
• We have a family song that I sang to the boys before sleep every night when they were little. Still going strong.
• We have many lines from movies and quotes that have come to have special meaning to the family over the years. The so-called insider jokes.
• The only dessert my husband ever makes is his 'famous' trifle for special occasions.
• we have watch-til-you-drop night - basically a movie marathon where kudos is given to the last person awake. Hubby and I are always the first to sleep.
• Friday night is always GYO - Get Your Own (dinner)

Cant think of too many at this moment but there probably is !!
When we are all together for birthdays we sing Happy birthday at about 5 times the speed it should be , any outsiders look on in amazement their faces are priceless.
My dearly departed uncle used to concoct weird & wonderful stories for us growing up , his attention cry at a BBQ usually in the Dandenongs was 'Cook-a-chook' . A phrase often repeated for a laugh !
My young  cousin always said capushion for cushion we still use that ! lol
As early teens my boys liked getting Lynx deodorant ! I still buy it for them for Xmas as a joke !They're not impressed !

We always went to the same place for Christmas holidays. Our girls never asked to go somewhere different because it was acknowledged as chill out time for everyone to do their own thing...my husband catching up with reading, my embroidery and the girls always playing monopoly. Having said that Uno and Trouble were always played when we went camping at Easter. Very loudly! Also Rummikub. 
I'd always make the girls their birthday cakes, they would get to choose what design. The ones i had the most fun making were their 18th cakes. One was a Tardis from Doctor Who and the other was this cube thing from a game called Portal.

@Ellamary98 You reminded me of the glass (pretend crystal) cake stand. It was probably a cheapie from Woolworths but it came out at every birthday for the cake. I'd now in my cupboard and still comes out for every birthday cake. And I call out "Don't touch the bottom!" now instead of my Mum when the wish is made and the cake is cut.

We don't have any family traditions that I can think of.  One thing I miss since moving out of my parents home is that Dad used to come to my (closed) door and say "ni(ght) ni(ght) Mira" just before he went to bed every night.  It didn't matter if I was awake or asleep, he just said it.  I used to lie there and wait for it. 

Love this thread!  And such great and funny quirks! I have some birthday-themed traditions...

• When we celebrate my father's birthday, all the grandchildren (16) clap him out once he has blown the candles with the number of birthdays. It began on his 61st, with just a couple of toddlers and us parents, and has grown into a much-loved tradition. This year he was 81, so 81 big claps from a house full of kids ranging from 3years old to 21.  He loves it so much that he often gets teary- quite the sight in a grumpy old sod!
• In our own household, if you turn 12, you get twelve gifts and so on. (It seemed a good idea when they were turning 3!) As they have become older, we wrap up pencil sharpeners, Tim-Tams and bits of memorabilia amongst the real gifts. There is almost always an item of my clothing wrapped in the mix, because one year my two eldest children (aged about 8 and 10) were told 'Henry's birthday presents are on our bed with the giftwrap so go and wrap them up while he's not looking.' They inadvertently included a t-shirt of mine left folded on the bed, much to Henry's confusion, and it became a family joke.
• Gifts must be opened in a particular order, and we use photos of them at different ages ( open youngest to oldest) or mathematical equations. Recently, we have introduced musical trivia which they need to answer correctly before the gift can be opened. 
• Our birthday celebrations are very unfussy,-usually afternoon tea, but they are full of quirky traditions, right down to the small cake stand which the birthday person must use as a plate and the old tankard of Fanta, which they thought was so special when they were young.
• Once you start thinking about it, there are so many family traditions, all the more special because they are unique to your own family.