Dan Nida and Erika Wiltse joked that going to the hospital has become a holiday tradition in recent years, between visits to the emergency room and final farewells to loved ones.

“It’s not really a good tradition,” Nida chuckled, shaking his head.

Wiltse was able to offer a more positive example, in the form of “Christmas Eve pajamas,” a favorite of their daughters, Ruby, 10, and Anabelle, 6.

“We pack a bunch of movies and hot chocolate and brand-new fuzzy pajamas around the tree,” Wiltse said. “Sometimes, we even have fancy stuff like white hot chocolate.”

Patrick Hurlburt was visiting from Bainbridge Island with his father, John, when they recalled an annual family game whose origins have been lost to the mists of history.

“To play Puff-Ball, you need a pingpong ball and a dining-room table or other flat surface,” Patrick Hurlburt said. “You get on your knees, and you try to blow the ball with your breath. You score by getting the ball between the heads and shoulders of your opponents.”

Although neither father nor son had any idea what inspired this game, they don’t doubt that “generations of research and development” went into it.

If you watched the movie “A Christmas Story” and were inspired by its ending, you’re not alone.

Mark and Rachel DeJarnatt of Point Hudson have followed that film family’s example by going to Chinese restaurants every Christmas Eve, with sons William and Christian in tow, as well as their daughter, Grace.

“[The restaurant’s] actually amazingly busy most years,” Mark DeJarnatt said. “We always have to get reservations.”

While the DeJarnatts’ favorite dishes range across the chicken spectrum, from sweet-and-sour to kung pao and General Tso’s, they can always look forward to “the traditional Christmas Eve reading of fortune cookies” after their meal.

Although it’s not exclusively a holiday tradition, Barb Spence and Frank Moore always take time during this season to come over on the ferry from Oak Harbor and take in a show at The Rose Theatre.

“We’ve been doing it for a few years now,” Spence said. “Regardless of what the movie happens to be, both the theater and the town are so beautiful, and the ride over is always delightful.”

Michael Stinson’s Montana-bred family celebrated the holidays in a rough-and-tumble fashion.

“We always had these shots of Bailey’s and … I don’t know what we mixed it with. Amaretto, maybe? It tasted like butterscotch,” Stinson said. “Our family liked drinking, and we all had Christmas Eve off, so we did shots together.”

The following Christmas morning always calls for biscuits and gravy.

As a Tibetan Buddhist, Erin Kluck observes a number of holiday customs that might seem unorthodox to others.

One that she grew up with, and has passed on to her children, is the Children’s Day shrine, which coincides with the winter solstice.

“The shrine has a king and queen, who bring the gifts, and is decorated with anything else that the kids like,” Kluck said. “My mom told me that my brother once decorated the shrine with those little green army men. I put anything that I find pretty into the shrine.”

Maggie Brown’s family has adopted a sort of “first tag” approach to Christmas Eve gifts.

“If you say ‘Christmas Eve gift’ to them before they say it to you, you have to get them a gift,” said Brown, who was visiting from Bainbridge Island with her husband, Gordon, and their daughter, Audrey. “It can be something silly, like a lottery ticket, or something else small, like edible treats or kids’ toys.”

Brown has made a habit of purchasing a number of simple gifts ahead of time to hand out at a moment’s notice, since her mom has resorted to creative methods to declare first tag, including spray-painting the words “Christmas Eve gift” on her windows with fake snow.