The Pajama Tradition

The holidays are filled with traditions. Most families put up a Christmas tree. There are the traditional cookies that get baked. In my family, the Passed-Around-Pajamas are a tradition.

You can read about the beginning of the tradition HERE. That will get you up to speed.

Basically, Dad bought Mom The Pajamas for a Christmas present more than 10 years ago. Mom snuck them in my take-home box so I was stuck with them. The following Christmas I wrapped them up for my mom, again. She and I have gone back and forth giving each other those pajamas in a variety of crazy ways. A couple of times we deviated from the Christmas tradition and gave them at a different time during the year. As in the time I celebrated my 25-year anniversary at the work place and someone handed me a gift to open during the recognition party. It was the pajamas. My mom had sent them to a co-worker asking that I be given the box during our celebration! Oh that was embarrassing!

The Christmas of 2010 my mom hid the pajamas in my house. As she and I were planning my brother’s 50th birthday party we thought it would be fun to give him the pajamas. When I asked my mom if she was going to give him this famous gift she just giggled and said “haven’t you found them yet”? I hunted and hunted but couldn’t find where she had hidden them in my house. She finally gave me enough clues and I found them in between the box spring and mattress in the guest bed. 

To surprise my brother I stuffed those pajamas full of newspaper. I enlarged a nice photo of my brother’s head until the picture was almost life-size. The “head” was cut out and glued onto a paint stick and the stick was shoved into the stuffed “body” of pajamas. It looked like a human! I drove Mr. Pajama Man to my brother’s city. Going into his place of business after hours, I set up Mr. Pajama Man in my brother’s desk, hung some signs and left town. The next morning when he arrived at work, he was quite surprised and speechless to see he was now the recipient of the pajamas.


Thankfully, Brother Al kept the tradition going this year. He wrapped those pajamas up in a very nice box for…..dad! The one that started this whole Pajama Tradition finally was the recipient of the gift!





I wonder where they will go next….