What are your weird family idosyncracies?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My entire family, if complimented on any sort of item, will proudly respond with how cheaply said item was obtained.
"I love this big salad bowl." "Thanks! Got it at a garage sale for 25 cents." All of us. Always.
My husband thought this was insane at first because his family doesn't talk about money and wouldn't be caught dead buying used items. Now he's all in.

Midwestern?

Yes, we're from Michigan.

Same here. Illinois. Getting things at a bargain is worth bragging rights!

[Anonymous]

Plates, way too many plates. I take after my mother.

[Anonymous]

Christmas with my husbands family is quiet and orderly. Very different from mine.

Everyone sits patiently while someone hands out gifts. The gifts sit in a pile next to you. The youngest person opens all their gifts first and then the next youngest and so on. There's not much conversation during gift opening. And wrapping paper is wadded up and thrown away upon opening each gift.

In my family, a "Santa" usually an energetic child, picks up the first few gifts he sees and hands them out, we TRY to open them one at a time. Then the Santa grabs a few more etc. We cannot be orderly with the kids and a bunch of people who are trying to have conversations over the din of the kids. And my mom trying to explain her gift to her DIL but dil hasn't opened it yet and my dad yelling to smile for the camera and someone yelling I HAVEN'T OPENED ANY PRESENTS YET! FIND ONE FOR ME! (not always a child). And we're all tipsy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If my DH is standing next to his mom while she's sitting, she'll put her arm around his waist and he'll sit on her lap sideways. The first time I saw this he was in law school, so like early 20's, and I, who came from a very WASPy home and couldn't recall ever hugging my mother let alone sitting on her lap, freaked out.

After we were engaged she tried to get me to do it once and I walked away.

This sounds like a scene from a movie. Too funny!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My entire family, if complimented on any sort of item, will proudly respond with how cheaply said item was obtained.
"I love this big salad bowl." "Thanks! Got it at a garage sale for 25 cents." All of us. Always.
My husband thought this was insane at first because his family doesn't talk about money and wouldn't be caught dead buying used items. Now he's all in.

My family does this too! Especially my mom.

Us, too! Funny!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom puts the eggs away (she doesn't keep them in the carton) so each egg is next to one it was next to in the carton so they don't get lonely.

I love your mom!

I used to really love clocks. But I had a college roommate who berated me for my love of clocks and sucked out my joy.

I love clocks too! When Fios swapped their boxes to not having clocks, I bought several analogs for around the house, just one per room - but there are actual clock people.

[Anonymous]

Do most people or kids lick the beaters as a treat after mixing something? Ok maybe like whip cream where you won't get salmonella and not front of company. DHs family never did this. I guess we were uncivilized.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My entire family, if complimented on any sort of item, will proudly respond with how cheaply said item was obtained.
"I love this big salad bowl." "Thanks! Got it at a garage sale for 25 cents." All of us. Always.
My husband thought this was insane at first because his family doesn't talk about money and wouldn't be caught dead buying used items. Now he's all in.

My family does this too! Especially my mom.

My family too.

I'm East coast and love a deal. I had someone figure out if I just said 'thanks' after a compliment, I probably paid full price.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do most people or kids lick the beaters as a treat after mixing something? Ok maybe like whip cream where you won't get salmonella and not front of company. DHs family never did this. I guess we were uncivilized.

Of course! My kids line up for when I unplug the mixer and remove the beaters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My entire family, if complimented on any sort of item, will proudly respond with how cheaply said item was obtained.
"I love this big salad bowl." "Thanks! Got it at a garage sale for 25 cents." All of us. Always.
My husband thought this was insane at first because his family doesn't talk about money and wouldn't be caught dead buying used items. Now he's all in.

My family does this too! Especially my mom.

My family too.

I'm East coast and love a deal. I had someone figure out if I just said 'thanks' after a compliment, I probably paid full price.

This is hilarious and true! My mom complimented a dress and I said thank you and trailed off. There were a few awkward seconds and then she said "So ...I guess it cost too much."

[Anonymous]

My dad is very quirky.

He makes himself oatmeal every morning for breakfast in the microwave in a giant Pyrex bowl because the oatmeal won’t splatter out of the giant bowl. And he eats out of the giant bowl.

He has a few limited topics of conversation. Mostly real estate and cars. He always asks me what the price of gas is where l live, and how my car is running, when l call every couple of weeks.

He has a good quality but massively heavy and cumbersome vacuum cleaner from the 80’s. He liked to brag about how good it was. I think my parents bought it from a door to door vacuum cleaner salesman back in the day. I gifted them a tiny and practical Dyson. He loves it so much and uses it daily. But he doesn’t brag about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband is one of six kids. All are married, three have kids. Every single freaking person in his family gives every other person multiple Christmas gifts. Like, 3-5 each. And it's all junk. We don't even spend Christmas together. Instead a bunch of junk from Amazon shows up on our doorstep.

My in laws have a similar dynamic (husband is one of five, three with kids)- except they all exchange generic gift cards and cash. Like, what is the point to this? Once I suggested just giving the kids gifts, because they all pretty much give gift cards for the same amount and it all kind of nets out. People looked at me like I was the crazy one 🙃

[Anonymous]

My dad thought blowing on something made it clean.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do most people or kids lick the beaters as a treat after mixing something? Ok maybe like whip cream where you won't get salmonella and not front of company. DHs family never did this. I guess we were uncivilized.

100% even the raw batter

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom eats a LOT of peanut butter but doesn’t let like to touch it or smell it when she rinses off the knife. The dishwasher never gets it all off so her solution is to buy plastic knives for peanut butter only and discard them after each use.

Genius. I feel this way about cooked fried egg on spatulas. Someone needs to make disposable spatulas.

They need to make peanut jars more like a flat container - like County Crock or Cool Whip type container.

It would make it so much easier to get out, eliminate the 20 % waste left behind bc it's impossible to get the last bit, and you can use a regular knife and not mess around with spatulas.

That's a good idea! That said, my flatware is Dansk Odin an the weird shaped knives are actually very good at getting peanut butter out of the bottom of the jar!