Twinkle lights, tartan plaids, peppermint bark, an entire aisle of Hanukkah goodies at Target— such progress! Once all the holiday things begin to appear, our emotions kick into high gear, and we can easily go through the entire season, never stopping to think about the fact that holiday traditions aren’t holiday obligations. As in: There’s no law dictating that you need to pre-order a pasture-raised heritage turkey months in advance like your mom always has. You will not be jailed if you finally admit that you find faux Christmas trees cuter and easier. Just because all the other parents do Elf on the Shelf doesn’t mean you have to introduce that guy to your toddler. (Think verrry carefully about whether you want the added pressure of secretly moving that thing around every night for a month for the next decade or so.) And you don’t actually need to hunt down matching pajamas for you, your partner, and your dog—ones that actually fit everyone—and then force everyone to do a themed Instagram photoshoot. Unless, of course, you actually enjoy this.
That’s the thing: Ideally, holiday traditions should be something you consciously choose to carry forward because you actually find them meaningful or enjoyable. Not something you keep doing out of habit or peer pressure or cultural obligation. Because let’s be honest: Once the caffeine buzz from our latest cinnamon-dolce latte wears off, most of us have very limited energy to accomplish everything we actually want to do between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. And our free time is even more limited. So this season, why not re-strategize which traditions will truly fill your holiday cup and which might be ready for retirement alongside believing in Santa? (Can you believe you ever sat on a stranger’s lap at the mall?) We asked around for inspiration and made a list that’ll help get the festive traditions flowing—or fading into the rearview mirror.
7 Holiday Traditions You Can Retire
Not everyone can (or wants to) indulge in the holiday specialties of yore. That doesn’t make you a grinch. Don’t feel guilty passing on Mom’s marshmallow-encrusted sweet potatoes—or offering to reinvent them. “Coming from an Italian family, baking is a key way to come together at the holidays, but this was threatened when I had to adopt a restrictive diet for medical reasons,” says Dr. Chelsea Azarcon, a naturopathic medical doctor in Auburn, CA. “Over time, I dedicated myself to not abandoning my baking passion and learned to make things using healthier ingredients. At the same time, my family started getting more interested in healthy eating. I began attempting spectacular cakes for every holiday as well as large trays of cookies and pies and became so talented that no one could tell the difference between my desserts and regular dessert. In fact, mine were better. Now, these new desserts are at the heart of our holiday excitement.” Another organic way to update the usual holiday menu is to have newcomers to the family—like a partner you brought home to introduce to the gang—contribute a favorite dish from their own family repertoire.
When holiday shopping starts to stress you out rather than excite you, remember that buying less stuff doesn’t have to mean giving up anything. Quite the opposite, in fact: Many people find that cutting back on gift-giving frees up time, energy, and budget to use toward fully experiencing the season. A couple ways to dial back on the excess when it’s a long-running tradition: Instead of everyone in the extended family buying for everyone, draw names, and within your immediate family, consider gifting a couple things that you can all do together, i.e. tickets to a local theater performance or passes to the arcade or trampoline park. “What if we no longer spent an exorbitant amount of money on gifts that people don’t want or need and instead have experiences together and create memories?” says Amalia Natalio, a spiritual coach based in Boca Raton, FL. “Memories are so much more cherished and valuable than any gift that can be purchased.”
Even if you’ve watched the ball drop on New Year’s Eve since you were a kid, the world won’t actually stop spinning if you go to bed. Maybe now you have kids, have lost your enthusiasm for televised lip-syncing by artists you loved in 2003, or just have a embraced newfound passion for sleep. Whatever the reason, it’s OK to say no to starting the year off with a late night. You can even spin this change into a new tradition: “There’s no way I’m letting all my kids stay up until midnight, so I DVR the countdown show and watch it the following night with the little ones so they can celebrate and experience the thrill,” says Food Network star Darnell “SuperChef” Ferguson. If it’s the NYE kiss you’d miss, why not embrace a New Year’s morning wake-up kiss instead?
Shiny printed gift wrap is so cute, but during holidays heaped with colorful gifts, something simple can actually stand out even more. Keeping your paper basic doesn’t just save time and money and reduce waste—DIYing also gives your gifts an extra layer of sentiment (and lets you channel your creativity even more than the premade stuff). “My dad wraps our presents in brown kraft paper and then paints a little clue about what’s inside—a fun little tradition that extends the joy of anticipation,” says San Francisco-based cooking instructor Lindsay Kinder, founder of Food La La. If you’re not quite that artsy, get some alphabet stamps and pretty ink so you can spell out names.
If you enjoy hand-writing personalized greetings or designing an annual photo card, that’s amazing. Some people definitely love receiving them. But if you find the whole process to be a chore, opting out will not put you on some karmic naughty list. Promise. “I finally stopped sending them during the pandemic, and now I focus on getting together with friends and family over the holidays and mailing more handwritten thank-you notes during the year, when I have more time to sit and think about what I’m writing,” says Stacey Curry of Cape Elizabeth, ME.
For many, cocktails are central to holiday fun, but it’s easy to take this particular tradition too far. If you (or certain family members or coworkers) resemble the modern-day version of Clark Griswold hitting the egg nog in Christmas Vacation, consider offering up an appropriately festive nonalcoholic option. Mocktails give you that drink-in-hand feeling while actually hydrating you. Hilary Sheinbaum, author of The Dry Challenge, has a current favorite she calls The French 89, a nod to The Year of Taylor Swift. The recipe:
- 1 oz. Damrak 0.0 or Free Spirits Spirit of Gin
- 1/4 oz. simple syrup
- 1/4 oz. lemon juice
- 3 oz. Mionetto Prosecco Alcohol-Removed (or any nonalcoholic sparkling wine)
Serve in a coupe glass with a lemon-peel garnish, and partiers won’t feel deprived in the slightest.
No food has a worse labor-to-enjoyment ratio—to the extent that people get really excited talking about the time they gave up turkey. “A couple of years ago, I talked my family into ditching the turkey for Thanksgiving,” says beauty and wellness journalist Grace Gold of New York City. “Cooking it added too much stress to a holiday that I wanted to enjoy more. Also, we realized no one really loved the turkey. We kept the sides that everyone loves and instead do roasted salmon or mushroom chicken as the main entree. Everyone is happier!” Same goes for Christmas turkey traditions. “Growing up in Mexico, I ate turkey for Christmas every year, as we do in most of Latin America,” says Laura Ozyilmaz, co-owner/co-chef of Dalida restaurant in San Francisco. “When I discovered most Americans didn’t have a big appetite for the bird outside of Thanksgiving, I quickly moved on! In Turkey, where my husband is from, one holiday tradition is to eat in-season turbot from the Black Sea, and I love this so much more. Eating fish for a holiday is wonderful because you want to build memories with your family and friends, not just fall asleep on the couch.”
9 New Holiday Traditions to Consider
Here’s a low-stakes tradition with Spanish roots that’s migrated to other European and Hispanic countries: Recently trending on Tik Tok, las doce uvas de la suerte, or the 12 grapes of luck, originated in Madrid, where people have long gathered in the main square, Puerto del Sol, and attempted to eat one grape with each chime of midnight. Others mirror this at home: “Everyone in my family eats 12 grapes before midnight, one to represent each month of the year, while making a wish,” says Carolina Acosta of Queens, NYC, founder of the bilingual game company Tregos. Some eat the grapes under a table. Some do it while wearing certain colors of underwear. “Wear red underwear for love in the new year, yellow for more money,” says Patricia Morales Galindo of Los Angeles, who grew up following this tradition in Mexico City. (The grapes and the red underwear also have roots in Italy.) Another tradition Morales Galindo carried forward from Mexico: “Grab a coin and leave it out all night on New Year’s Eve. This is to serenar the coin, or to absorb the serene of the night and the moonlight. Next morning, pick it up, keep it in your wallet for the whole year, and on December 31st, give it away to someone in need. This is so you have all you need during the year, plus blessings.”
“One of my favorite traditions is something we call The Polar Express,” says Katy Kindred, a Charlotte, NC-based restaurateur and founder of Kindred Studio. “We have the kids make tickets out of yellow construction paper, pack hot chocolate in a Thermos, and take an Amtrak train in our jammies on a short trip to Greensboro. We have a hotel pick us up in fancy cars and stay a night. We order room service, take bubble baths, watch Home Alone and eat a fancy brunch the next morning. It’s super fun!”
Here’s an idea that makes a party out of all those TikTok recipes you’ve saved and then completely forgotten about. “I have a tradition I plan to start this year—a Friendsgiving where everyone has to make one Instagram recipe,” says Curry. “We could finally try some of those amazing-looking dishes I save in my feed but never get around to making!”
“We have a holiday tradition in our family around food and food waste,” says Raina Kumra, founder of Spicewell. “Since our holiday meals involve a lot of cooking and a lot of food, we spend time after each meal wrapping up mini meals—a bit of everything, from the mains and sides to desserts. We then distribute these to different homeless encampments, sometimes while the food is still warm. That’s the best holiday feeling. We’ve started doing this after our kids’ birthday parties too.”
Since New Year’s is a nonreligious holiday, it’s an excellent blank slate amid the season for combining foods and drinks from different cultures represented within families. “As a Jewish and Korean family, we prepare a Hawaiian-inspired Korean dumpling extravaganza to ring in the New Year,” says Beth Lee, author of The Essential Jewish Baking Cookbook. Even on religious holidays, it’s fun to riff on tradition by tying in the heritage of family members. “I’m so proud of being a Puerto Rican/Jewish woman and love celebrating that heritage, especially when I cook,” says Trisha Pérez Kennealy, owner and culinary director of the Inn at Hastings Park in Lexington, MA. “Everyone knows about potato latkes during Hanukkah, but I love making a dish that’s not as widely known: sufganiyot, which are Israeli jelly donuts. I fill mine with guava jelly, which reminds me of Puerto Rico.”
“We’ve added a Scandinavian tradition of having an advent candle that we light together daily as part of the Christmas countdown,” says Vanessa Gordon of East Hampton, NY, CEO and publisher of East End Taste, who got the idea during a recent trip to Iceland. Her family also buys a Christmas ornament in each place they visit so their tree evokes memories of family adventures.
“One of the most important traditions for us—something my husband and I have done since before we were married—is adopting a family for the holidays,” says Alejandra Ayalde of Sherman Oaks, CA. “We spoil them rotten, asking for three things they want and three things they need and trying to get them everything on that list. My two kids, ages 7 and 9, are very involved. We wrap everything and deliver the carload of goodies to the family.” To find a family to adopt, contact a local transitional living program or nonprofits like United Way, Salvation Army, and Catholic Charities.
“One of my very favorite new traditions is what we’re calling Mimosa Morning on Christmas,” says actress Erin Cahill. “My family and I wake up very leisurely and open our stockings over coffee. Then we stay in our PJs and make a simple brunch of eggs, croissants, and mimosas. We open gifts while finishing the prosecco, and still in our PJs, put on Christmas movies and relax all the way into the evening. It’s the most cozy and fun day of the year.”
“After we finish with our families on Christmas around 6 p.m., all my friends with similar family situations—or those who don’t celebrate Christmas or don’t celebrate on the actual day—come together,” says Julia Lepidi, Detroit-based syndicated radio host of The Julia Show on Audacy. “We all bring our leftovers and any alcohol we got as gifts, and we play board games all night. Usually, we have the next day off, so we get to be sloths and nurse our hangovers.”
Petra Guglielmetti is a health, wellness, and beauty journalist who taps into a broad network of experts to write in-depth service articles for leading publications, including Glamour, Health, Real Simple, and Parents.
