The holidays are upon us, which can only mean one thing: it’s time to hang out with family while eating good food, receiving presents and reminiscing about holiday memories, both good and bad. I’ve asked fellow U of M students to share their craziest and funniest holiday stories, and here are some of the best ones!
“One night we left the Christmas Eve family reunion on my Dad’s side early (at 9:00 [in the morning], which is very early compared to the 12:00 norm). We were going to go see a movie, but the theatres were closed, so we ended up just driving home. My mom, sister and I baked cookies while my dad binged watched The Walking Dead in the other room. But, around 1:00 a.m., when we decided cookies weren’t exciting enough, we took the broken-necked light-up reindeer from the basement, drove down the road in my mom’s white mini-van, and added it to our neighbor’s meticulously decorated front lawn. A thrifted nativity scene is on the list for this year, just don’t tell the neighbors!”
“It’s my family’s tradition to decorate the Christmas tree together every year. It starts out calm, with us casually putting on ornaments and listening to Christmas music, but soon turns to mass chaos with us blaring the music and dancing wildly while arguing over whose side of the tree looks better. One year, when I was around 5 or 6 [years old], things got a little crazy and long story short the Christmas tree ended up falling on top of me. As a kid, this is arguably one of the worst things that can happen before Christmas and I ended up crying for hours about how ‘I ruined Christmas!!’”
“My little cousin was born just a week before Christmas, so when our whole family got together we spent most of our time just watching the newborn sleep like it was the most exciting thing in the world.”
“One year, my boyfriend and I decided that we were only going to get each other one joke present and it had to be $10 or less. I took this to heart and went shopping at Spencer’s for the weirdest present I could find. Come Christmas Day I found he had actually surprised me with a stunning necklace..it made me giving him a “Female Body Inspector” pin slightly awkward.”
“This year, Hanukkah starts on Christmas Eve. I told my parents, and they laughed at me for my ‘ignorance.’ The look on their face when they realized I was right was priceless.”
“A couple years ago my family and I went tree shopping for the perfect Christmas tree. We spent hours but finally found the best one. As we were driving home, we went over a bump; the tree did not take it well as we looked back to see the tree bouncing down the road behind us. Thankfully no one was behind us so no one got hurt! “
As you can see, people have very entertaining holidays. To see more stories from other Gophers, stay tuned for Gopher Confessions: Finals Edition!
Editor’s Note: Submissions have been edited for concision and clarity. Names have been omitted to protect the identity of those who submitted.