Celebrity holiday traditions that would break the internet today
- - Celebrity holiday traditions that would break the internet today
Nourhan SandoukDecember 20, 2025 at 2:56 AM
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Celebrity Holiday Traditions
There’s something fun about getting a peek behind the curtain at how the rich and famous celebrate, to see how they will decorate their mansions or what they wear to their Christmas parties. While today’s social media is filled with many unusual or over-the-top holiday trends, many celebrity traditions from the past were unusual or even incredibly shocking.
Here are some holiday moments of famous people that would truly break the internet if they happened today.
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Billionaire’s Christmas: The Unfiltered Years
The holidays have always been a stage for celebrities to show off, the only difference between past and present holiday traditions is the lack of an immediate share with the public.
While today’s influencers detail every expensive gift and decoration, celebrities in the past kept their celebrations and life details a little more discreet, but no less massive.
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Million-Dollar Christmas Trees
Today, stars spend fortunes to turn their homes into Christmas palaces, and the photos immediately flood Instagram. But the tradition of jaw-dropping holiday excess is decades old.
Stars like Elizabeth Taylor would cover her tree with actual, high-carat jewelry or expensive custom replicas, or Doris Duke, one of America’s wealthiest heiresses and a famous socialite, with her custom-designed holiday decor and the sheer scale of her imported, perfect trees. During these times excessive spending was hidden, we only could see the results.
Meanwhile today we can easily see the smallest details in the holidays preparation, like Kim Kardashian with her stark, all-white, minimalist-maximalist Christmas decor, and her hallway of snow-flocked trees and abstract ornaments that becomes viral every year or Kylie Jenner with her two-story-tall trees sometimes gold-themed.
Hearing this in the past might have been a rumor, but today the decorator’s before and after reels alone would get 5 million views. The luxury was there, but the shock value was delayed.
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
Holiday Royal Travel
In the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s, the biggest stars traveled all the way to Aspen, Gstaad, or private islands on luxurious, custom-outfitted aircraft. Hugh Hefner’s famous “Big Bunny” jet complete with a disco and round bed is one of the most famous examples. Today, every celebrity’s private flight is tracked and posted with all its details.
These acts of extravagant holiday travel were kept largely private. If a live photo of Elvis’s opulent jet interior, or a map tracking its journey to an exotic location, hit the internet today, the awe and envy would be amplified by the power of social media ten thousand times over.
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Designer Matching Pajamas for the Whole Family
This tradition is now an annual social media trend, with families of famous people and influencers posting their perfect family photo in front of the tree.
The tradition of wearing matching PJs was a tradition before becoming a trend, if those intimate, cozy-yet-luxurious photos of a vintage Hollywood family in matching pajamas dropped on TikTok today, it would instantly become the biggest, most- holiday trend of the year.
Image Credit: IMDb
Quirky or Eccentric Traditions
Before social media forced celebrities to present a perfect image, their holiday traditions were often genuine, sometimes strange, and often delightfully unfiltered.
They weren’t trying to market a product, they were just being themselves, rich and sometimes a little odd.
Image Credit: Jailhouse Rock
Unusual Gift Exchanges
Today, the most shocking celebrity gifts would be expensive cars or jewelry. But famous people in the past usually exchanged gifts that would break every modern social media guideline. From exotic animals like the kangaroo Lee Gordon, a Hollywood booking agent, sent to Elvis Presley, that he gifted to the zoo so that everyone could enjoy the precious animal and receive the right care, to a custom designed rare and bizarre art, or even a series of pranks and bizarre bets like the series between Humphrey Bogart and director John Huston. Their friendship was marked by an endless series of pranks and bizarre bets. While not a typical gift, the practical jokes they played on each other, often timed for the holidays, were sometimes more valuable than a present.
If a celebrity today posted an unboxing video of a live, rare parrot or an oddly-themed, personalized gold statue, the reactions, angry comments, and resulting memes would instantly take over the internet.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
Themed Holiday Parties That Take Weeks to Plan
Modern celebrities throw parties, but they are usually covered by a private photographer. Back then, legendary figures like Hugh Hefner at the Playboy Mansion held massive holiday parties that were immersive events, requiring weeks of planning for elaborate set designs, special costumes, and many activities for entertainment.
Imagine the social media today if a guest posted live coverage of one of Hefner’s famous themed parties, the event coverage alone would be a global trending topic for a month.
Pets as Centerpieces of the Celebration
For Old Hollywood stars, pets were part of their highly dramatic persona. Icons like Joan Collins were photographed with exotic pets like monkeys, and many stars had designer-dyed poodles or rare breeds. Dressing up these animals was a sign of luxury. These adorable pet photos would instantly spark viral content, thousands of loving memes, and endless online debates.
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Food and Drink Extravaganzas
For stars of the past, holiday meals were prepared by personal cooks. These chefs created dishes that were visually stunning in a way only the mid-20th century knew how. Imagine a Beef Wellington perfectly encased in glossy, ornate pastry, or an elaborately decorated Prawn Cocktail tower.
Holiday traditions also included signature cocktails that were often heavily creamy or brightly colored, like a Grasshopper, a neon green, mint-flavored drink or a Tom and Jerry, a thicker, hot eggnog cousin.
Famous families often stuck to classic holiday recipes that included unusual elements like multi-layered, savory Jell-O molds, with ingredients like tuna, celery, and cabbage or Ham and Bananas Hollandaise. These unique, nostalgic family recipes would be the biggest hit today, not because they look delicious, but because they are so weird.
Image Credit: Mumemories/iStock
Giving Back… with Style
The ability of a celebrity to do good during the holidays is timeless, but social media has changed the game. Before the internet, a huge charitable donation was just a story, today, it’s a global call to action.
Decades ago, major stars sometimes used their wealth to surprise entire communities with grand acts of generosity. Imagine a star anonymously buying every toy in a store for a local orphanage, or completely paying off the rent for a street of low-income families on Christmas Eve.
Stars also performed these grand, spontaneous acts of kindness, but the impact was local, but today, they would be captured on hundreds of phones and instantly trend worldwide.
Think of a famous figure leaving huge, unexplained cash sums in random people’s holiday mailboxes, or an anonymous celebrity paying for a whole town’s Christmas dinner. If even a rumor of this kind of creative, secret giving surfaced today, the online work to uncover the generous star would turn it into a massive, viral campaign.
Image Credit: petrenkod/iStock
Traditions That Blur Holidays and Branding
Even without Instagram, celebrities always knew how to blend their holiday activities with their personal brand. For example, a star might host a highly publicized, exclusive holiday gala to raise funds for their own foundation, or launch a limited-edition holiday product that benefits a cause.
In the past, it was a press release, today, an exclusive peek at a star’s holiday charity event or the launch of their product line would explode online, instantly turning a good cause into a global, must-have, viral moment.
Image Credit: Malkovstock/iStock
Viral Then, Viral Now
Looking back at the holiday habits of the stars before the age of instant sharing, these traditions offer a mix of nostalgia and luxury.
Today, we are drawn to these stories because they fit into our desire to peek behind the curtain. Although some traditions may seem wild, others heartwarming, but one thing’s for sure, if these celebs celebrated today, the internet would not survive the notifications.
Related:
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Child stars who built healthier adult lives by stepping out of the spotlight
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Source: “AOL Entertainment”
