12/23/25 - Happy Festivus! Unique Christmas Culinary Traditions and More
- bribriny
- 16 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Tuesday 12/23/25
Celebrate:
Festivus - Created in 1997 on Seinfeld.
Human Light
National Bake Day
National Christmas Movie Marathon Day
National Pffeffernusse Day
National Roots Day
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Unique Culinary Traditions.
Norway Smalahove - A traditional dish of sheep's head, typically served with potatoes and rutabaga.
Poland - Wigilia - A 12-course meatless Christmas Eve feast that begins only when the first star appears in the sky.
South Africa - Fried Caterpillars - Fried Emperor Moth caterpillars are a seasonal delicacy considered to bring luck.
Germany - Stollen - A dense fruit bread with nuts, spices, and dried fruit, coated with powdered sugar. (at least this sounds tasty)
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Holiday traditions that have mostly disappeared for whatever reason from Genealogyexposed.com.
Fruitcakes
In the 1960s and early 1970s, giving and receiving (real) fruitcakes wasn’t a joke.
Families spent days making homemade versions, soaking fruits in brandy for months. A quality fruitcake required ingredients costing about what $125 would buy today.
The dense cakes lasted months without refrigeration, making them practical gifts before overnight shipping.
Offices exchanged fruitcakes between departments. Some families had recipes passed down generations with secret ingredient combinations.
The cakes required aging—the best ones made in October for Christmas giving.
Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show jokes in the 1970s began fruitcake’s reputation decline.
(and there is the mass produced square ones..ick)
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Christmas Corsages for Women
You know how there is the myth that everyone has a massive Easter hat?
Every woman expected to receive and wear a Christmas corsage during the 1960s holiday season.
Florists created elaborate arrangements with tiny ornaments, ribbons, and bells alongside traditional flowers.
These cost about what $28-75 would run you today, depending on complexity.
Women wore them to church services, office parties, and family dinners. Department stores sold simpler versions.
The corsages featured poinsettia blooms, holly springs, miniature pine cones, and silver bells. Some included battery-powered lights by 1968.
Women’s liberation movements of the 1970s criticized corsages as symbols of female decoration.
By 1975, the tradition was fading rapidly.
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A man in Ontario was pulled over this weekend for doing nearly 100 mph in a 50 mph zone. His excuse? He told the officers he was "practicing for Santa" and needed to make sure he could handle the speed—police didn't buy the holiday spirit and impounded his car on the spot.
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A family in Germany was shocked to find their 15-foot decorated tree missing from their front yard, only to find a trail of glitter leading to a neighbor’s house. It turns out the neighbor "borrowed" it because they forgot to buy one and figured the glitter trail would be "festive, not a map."
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A traveler was stopped at an airport in Mexico after TSA found a full human skeleton in their luggage. The passenger claimed it was a "travel companion" and a good luck charm, (wait...what?) but security decided a plastic souvenir might be a better choice for the next trip.
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Today’s Useless Fact of the Day - In 1823, the poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas," better known as "Twas the Night Before Christmas," was first published anonymously in the Troy Sentinel newspaper in New York.
The author, Clement Clarke Moore, was actually embarrassed by the poem and didn't claim authorship for over 20 years, as he considered himself a "serious" scholar.
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