Celebrities Share Their Weird And Wonderful Holiday Traditions

Gwen Stefani covers the doorway to her living room in wrapping paper, so her kids have to burst through it to get to their presents! In the You Make It Feel Like Christmas 2017 special, she chuckled, “We have to be very patient, and we have to make sure that the phone’s working and that we videotape the boys crashing through the wrapping paper and then it reveals everything.” She giggled, “I don’t know how Santa thought that up. Such a good idea.”

During an appearance on The Tonight Show, Katie Holmes told Jimmy Fallon, “Many years ago, my dad started this tradition where we all do this run in the local park. It’s a three-mile run called the ‘Turkey Trot.’ There’s even a prize, which I haven’t won yet. But it’s really fun.” To some, this sounds charming. But, to others, it begs the question — what kind of sadist pushes a turkey-day tradition involving exercise?

Jessica Alba is a woman after our own heart — why make do with one solitary turkey at Christmas, when you can have two? In 2015 she told InStyle magazine that she, husband Cash Warren and her parents all cook together on the big day. The secret, though, is that her dad “makes the most yummy tender turkeys. He makes a spicy version — seasoned with fresh jalapeños — and a classic version with all the fixings.”

Christmas is a magical time, but it can also lead to needless excess. This is why in 2017 Mila Kunis told Entertainment Tonight that she and husband Ashton Kutcher had decided “our tradition is no presents for the kids.” She explained, “Last year when we celebrated Christmas, Wyatt was two and it was too much. We didn’t give her anything — it was the grandparents. The kid no longer appreciates the one gift. They don’t even know what they’re expecting; they’re just expecting stuff.”

Celebrities live busy lives so, for someone like Blake Lively, the holidays are a chance to rest and be with family. In 2014 she told The Kit magazine, “I don’t know how my family does it, [but] everybody gets in the same bed somehow. We just spend seven hours that day all together just chatting. It’s really nice to have that time because it’s rare we get time when we’re all together.” A bed day with Deadpool? Sign us up!

While promoting Christmas musical Spirited in 2022 Ferrell revealed his holidays have a unique flavor. He said, “Once I got married, it had a whole another element because my wife is Swedish. So, we do a lot of the Swedish traditions and throw a big Swedish Christmas party every year, [in] which Tomten — the Swedish Santa — comes and makes a visit.” He mischievously added, “There’s a rumor that I dress up as Tomten. That’s a rumor!”

In 2008 pop icon Carey told Redbook magazine of her Christmas tradition, with then-husband Nick Cannon, at their home in Aspen, Colorado. She explained, “The focal point of the week is the 23rd — when we do a real sleigh ride!” She added, “We get one or two horse-drawn sleighs, and we bundle up and go riding in the snow under the stars. We always drink cocoa with butterscotch schnapps to keep warm, and we sing at the top of our lungs.”

Yes, you read that right — Sandra Bullock’s tradition involves breaking U.S. law in order to eat delicious German sausages! She once told Jay Leno on The Tonight Show, “Since my mother passed, we break the law, because we have to manage to smuggle German sausages into the country, and apparently bringing meats across the waters is against the law!” It’s all in aid of continuing a tradition started by her mother Helga, a German opera singer.

“We have a few families out here that we’re friends with, all people our age that now have kids,” Kristen Bell told People magazine in 2018. “So, we rent a place with three or four of our friends and nine or ten kids — honestly, I don’t even know how many kids. It might be over a dozen at this point!” Of this time spent in the packed Airbnb in Mammoth, California, Bell said, “It is a nice way to reconnect with your friends after the holidays.”

Everyone has a few staple Christmas movies that are viewed every year during the holiday period — it’s tradition! For us, it’s Die Hard. For Chloë Grace Moretz, it’s The Family Stone, a not-particularly-well-known 2005 dramedy starring Diane Keaton, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Rachel McAdams. She and her family watch it every single Christmas Eve. Hey, we have to give them props for the unusual pick, if nothing else!

We associate Christmas with snow, mulled wine and wrapping up warm — but it doesn’t have to be that way! Just ask Fuller House star Candace Cameron Bure, who in 2021 told magazine Us Weekly, “We’re actually going on a trip together, the five of us, and we are doing the antithesis of a Hallmark movie. We are going to the beach. So, we’re going to just spend a little time in Miami and enjoy some sunshine and the ocean spray.”

In 2020 Tim McGraw told trade body the Country Music Association, “Our family tradition for years has been pasta. Spaghetti and meatballs on Christmas Eve. And that’s sort of my job as dad to prepare the spaghetti and meatballs. That’s a tradition that I’ve had since I was a child; I hope it carries on with them.” By “them,” the 1883 star of course meant the three beautiful daughters he shares with Faith Hill!

We sometimes like a bit of competitive spirit in our holiday traditions, so Melissa Joan Hart’s Christmas sweater competition — in which the ugliest, tackiest sweater wins — is right up our alley! Hart told People magazine, “It just popped in my head that I wanted to do something really silly.” Husband Mark admitted, “Every night I’d have 30 emails of links to different sweaters she thought were ridiculous to look at!”

Christmas is a fairly traditional affair in the Witherspoon household — aside from one little quirk. She told BBC Newsbeat in 2008, “I have kids, so it’s a lot about opening presents. And then I start cooking and I really enjoy that part of it.” Amusingly, though, the family also dresses up her Oscar statue, won for 2005’s Walk the Line! She chuckled, “Yes, at Christmas time they put a little hat on him and a little scarf, so he doesn’t get cold.”

Country sensation Carrie Underwood and former NHL star husband Mike Fisher drench their holiday in syrup! In 2020 she told People magazine, “We’ll get up and go to Waffle House. It’s such a hectic time, and I don’t feel like making breakfast on a day that you’re just making so much food anyway. So, we order breakfast and leave a ginormous tip.” To be honest, we don’t blame Underwood for skipping the cooking on Christmas morning — that’s a headache we could also do without!

Nick Lachey has a super-cute holiday decorating tradition, as revealed by wife Vanessa to House Beautiful magazine in 2018. She said, “He actually has a whole box of ornaments from when he was younger that he made in school. You know, when people do like the clothes-pin reindeer, or when they paint their hands on a plate, or all of these little things he had when growing up that his mom gave him when he left — we still have it.” Aww.

In 2013 Michelle Obama revealed she continued a tradition from her childhood into the White House. She told Ladies’ Home Journal magazine, “Our extended family was so large, people couldn’t really afford to buy gifts for everyone. So, a couple of our aunts would go out and purchase small gifts. They would put them in a basket and in order to get a gift you had to perform… You could tell a joke, read a poem, do a backflip — anything counted.” What a great idea!

The Kardashians have got together for an annual Christmas card photoshoot ever since the ’80s, when late father Robert started the tradition. Over the years, as the family blended with the Jenners and their fame shot through the roof, the shoots became more and more ostentatious. In 2017 there was huge drama surrounding the shoot, with sisters Kim and Kourtney fighting over its scheduling, and it was all caught on camera for Keeping Up With the Kardashians!

Opening Christmas presents in the middle of the night isn’t that unusual for parents of young kids — but they avoid it if possible. Yet actress Brooklyn Decker told Us Weekly in 2014, “One of our unusual traditions is that we can’t open presents in the daytime. It has to be dark outside because we want the Christmas lights. We wake up at about 3:00 a.m. and go back to sleep at around 6:00 a.m. !” She actually schedules it!

In November 2018, Legend revealed during an interview with The Receipt that he and glamorous wife Chrissy Teigen hadn’t exactly gone all-out for Christmas dinner the previous two years. In fact, they’d simply ordered McDonald’s! He did say that this tradition wasn’t going to become permanent, though, promising, “We’ve decided that Beef Wellington is our go-to Christmas main dish from now on!”

Inspired by her mother-in-law, Joanna Gaines started a Christmas tradition not long after she married husband Chip. In her Magnolia blog she explained, “Every holiday season, I get Chip and the kids an ornament that goes along with a memory from that year. I write their name and the date on the bottom, so as they get older, each one of them has a little collection that’s all their own.” These ornaments then take pride of place on the tree!

Younger star Nico Tortorella told Parade magazine in 2015, “I have a big Italian family, so we have a lot of food. And we play poker. We all bring $100 in singles and play until somebody wins all the money.” Interestingly, poker must go hand-in-hand with Italians at Christmas, because Ariana Grande also told Kiss FM in 2014 that playing “lots of poker” is something her family does!

We’re not sure if this tradition is still going, considering the upheavals there have been in the royal family in the last few years. But for a long time, William and Harry played in an annual Christmas Eve soccer match near the Sandringham Estate. In 2015 they were part of local pub The Black Horse Inn’s team, but their contributions were overshadowed by a 13-year-old prodigy who scored a hat-trick! 

During a 2017 interview with ExtraTV, Will Smith revealed the holiday period is dedicated to one person in their household — his wife Jada Pinkett-Smith! He admitted, “The Smiths, we do our own thing all year long. But when it comes to Christmas, it’s mommy time and everybody does exactly what mommy says between December 22… [and] January 1. That’s how it should be!” 

Ol’ Saint Nick gets some unique treats when he squeezes himself down the chimney at Kate Hudson’s house. In 2016 the actress was interviewed by her sportswear brand Fabletics, and she revealed, “One year, Santa wanted rum, root beer and licorice. One year, he wanted gluten-free cookies and almond milk. Another year, I think he wanted Cabernet and some chocolates.” Classy!

At the 2015 iHeartRadio Jingle Ball, Selena Gomez was asked about her holiday traditions, and she revealed, “Yeah, we do a hayride where we go Christmas carolling. My aunt even prints out the lyrics, so we remember them!” Then in 2019 she told the BBC that her little sister Gracie “is obsessed with decorating the tree, we made a gingerbread house, she’s got little clothes for her dog to dress up in.” She chuckled, “There’s a lot going on, it’s chaos!”

Modern Family star Sarah Hyland and Bachelorette contestant Wells Adams married in 2022 but started their own Christmas tradition after less than 12 months together! In November 2018 Adams told Us Weekly, “Our only tradition — because we’re so new, like we’ve just finished a year dating — for Christmas we wear onesies, which is what everyone does. It’s fun because you’re hungover on Christmas day and it’s comfy.” 

“Every year we eat tamales on Christmas morning and it’s pretty awesome,” revealed Nick Jonas to InStyle magazine in 2009. “My mom started it and it’s special because Kevin, Joe and I have grown up doing it. It’s very like us to have tamales on Christmas.” We wonder whether tamales are still part of Jonas’ holidays, now that he’s a happily married dad forming new traditions with wife Priyanka Chopra.

“Sufganiyot, or jelly doughnuts, are a traditional food eaten for Hanukkah,” explained The Big Bang Theory star Mayim Bialik to non-profit organization PETA. “The holiday falls in the winter and commemorates the miracle of oil that lights the menorah in the Great Temple in Jerusalem lasting for eight days rather than one. Foods fried in oil are thus traditional for this festive winter holiday. This is a recipe I veganized, and although it is labor-intensive, the results are unbelievably delicious!”

These days, the Beckhams probably Christmas in the lap of luxury, but when soccer icon David was a lad, the holidays were quite different — if no less happy! In a 2018 Instagram video he revealed, “My parents worked day and night to give me and my sisters everything possible. Christmas Eve was always about my dad going out and getting a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. My mum would always give us Christmas pyjamas the night before.”